Tomorrow
by ShivaVixen
Summary: Second in Ninja Life Series. After being turned into a dog, Kakashi had no idea he had drastically changed his students lives and futures, he just knew he wouldn't fail them as their sensei.
1. Thoughts of Tomorrow

**Hello, All! Well, after several pleas (and a marathon of Naruto AMV's, all set pre-time skip) I finally got around to outlining and writing the sequel to Dog's Life. Please keep in mind, though, that I am currently in college and will not be able to post very often, depending on classes and papers and the ever evil exams. I can promise that I will get at least one or two chapters up in a month, until summer rolls around and I can actually write without worrying about my grades slipping. **

**As stated previously, this will cover the Naruto timeline of events just before, during, and after the Chunin-exams, and will end before the time skip. Events WILL BE ALTERED, so do not expect cannon to be followed one hundred percent. In fact, do not read this expecting to see much cannon after the first few chapters. Things will change, though I will keep some key events the same(ish). There will be a couple of Original Characters, but they won't steal the show- only one might bacome a semi-long running character, but only in the same way Tenten is a character.**

**Please Enjoy, and Remember, not only do I not own Naruto or anything attributed to it, but I would like some feedback in the form of a review! **

**Thoughts of Tomorrow**

The ninja activated his sharigan as he moved closer to his target. Any route the mark chose would lead to capture at this point, but it had slipped past them before.

The mark shot to the left. "Heading your way, Orange, Red, get over to him!"

"Hai, White, I got- Kuso!" The swear came out in pain, and White was aware of his other teammate moving only from their burst of chakra.

"Kami-forsaken cat!" 'Orange' growled, holding the vicious little creature as it sank its teeth in his arm through the black with orange striped sleeve. His messy blonde hair was filled with leaves. "Why do we always have to catch you?" 'White' smirked as he landed, the only white on him was a mask that he'd left down around his neck instead of covering the lower half of his face.

"It's not that bad- we've gotten better at it since Red's learned to summon nin-dogs for tracking." At that moment, 'Red' and a bloodhound with the kohona hiate-ate for a collar landed in the clearing. She wiped some strands of her pink hair out of her mouth (They had come loose from her braid) and absently adjusted her own forehead protector.

"Red to Scarecrow, we got the target- can we hurry up and return it so we can get barbecue?"

"Then you three better get to the meeting point." 'Scarecrow' laughed over the shortwave radio. "Naruto, I'll have the first aid kit ready, I know your arm's getting mauled again."

"Laugh it up, Sensei." Naruto growled as he and the other two genin of team 7 headed over to where their sensei waited with a cat carrier and the first aid supplies. "I hate cats!" He wasted no time in shoving the cat into the cat carrier.

"No, cats are fine, it's this particular cat you hate." Sasuke corrected, glaring at the cat in question. "I hate this particular cat, and I like cats." He then got hit in the face by some pink hair as Sakura unbraided her hair. Sakura then quickly re-braided her hair as Kakashi cleaned the bites and scratches that Naruto had gained. "How do you do that without a mirror?" All the girls he had watched growing up had used a mirror to braid their hair. Like Naruto and himself, Sakura had changed clothes: from the dress and shorts she used to wear to something a bit more serious looking, usually a combination of capris and shirts that had three-quarter length sleeves. Right now she was wearing a baseball style shirt with black sleeves and collar while the torso was red, along with black capris with a red swirl pattern on the right leg, and red ninja sandals.

"Practice." She flipped the finished braid over her shoulder. "Ready to go?"

Once they had passed over the demon cat from hell (Sakura hit Naruto for muttering that while the Damiyo's wife was still in ear shot, though how Sakura thought the woman could hear over her high pitched squeals was beyond Naruto) they made for the nearest barbeque place to relax.

"Remind again what's wrong with Ramen for lunch?"

"Nothing, you just need a balanced diet, Naruto. Speaking of, we need to get you to drink more milk." Sakura smiled, somewhat sweetly. Naruto made a face. Sakura had decided she was going to make Naruto eat healthier, an undertaking that was not only sanctioned by Kakashi, but fully supported by him as well.

Sasuke chose to ignore the following argument in favor of eating his food. It always ended with Sakura winning, anyway. He smirked, remembering the brief, but dangerous time when they'd discovered Sakura's inner personality. They'd been sparring with Team Ten, and Ino tried her family's technique on Sakura. Somehow, it messed up, and Sakura's inner (and infinetly more violent) personality switched places with her usual one. It had been a chaotic wait for either Ino's dad or Kurenai-sensei to get back from whatever missions they had to help straighten her out- and Sasuke still had the scar where Inner Sakura had sliced at him with a kunai during a spar when he had made the mistake of telling her to fight harder. Inner Sakura had also almost strangled Naruto when he tried to have their usual food argument.

Seeing Kakashi-sensei torn between rescuing Naruto and pretending her didn't exist so he vould avoid her wrath had been amusing, to say the least.

"Okay you two, stop arguing and start eating." Kakashi intervened, smiling as the two chose to pretend to ignore each other. The warm sensation in his chest that came from being with his team and seeing them happy was well worth almost getting stuck as a wolfhound, though he had to ignore the realization that if they passed (or at least, if one of them passed) the upcoming chunin exams he was going to lose them- after Rin and him had become chunin, he couldn't recall any times where the three remaining had met up, and the times spent with the yondaime had mostly been official, the two rarely were able to sit and talk.

But that worry could wait, right now, Sakura was being sadistic in trying to get Naruto to drink the glass of milk she had ordered for him.

**Until next chapter! ShivaVixen, signing out!**


	2. Tomorrow's Past

**Don't own Naruto, never have, and probably never will.**

**Tomorrow's Past**

It was Naruto's fault, Sakura decided, it was Naruto's fault that the day before the exams, they'd already made enemies out of a genin team from the Sand Village.

Now, she knew that it wasn't fair to put the blame exclusively on Naruto, but honestly, any guy that gets the grandson of the Hokage to not only idolize him, but also copy his worst habits, deserved a huge chunk of the blame.

"Sakura, are you alright?" Naruto fully saw the swing coming. Dodging, however, would just make his teammate and former crush angrier, so he just braced himself for impact (verbal and physical).

"Alright? We've now got a team of genin from another village gunning for us! Not only that, but one of them will definitely aim to kill us!" Sakura growled. "All because you corrupted a group of kids with your worst and most annoying habits!"

"Sakura, that's not fair." Sasuke stopped her from hitting Naruto again. "It's not you that guy will be gunning for, but me and Naruto, remember?"

"And by extension, me, or did you forget we're a team?" Sakura retorted, most of her irrational anger abating. After that incident with Ino, Inner Sakura wasn't as easy to keep hidden and suppressed, leading to a lot more outbursts. She stalked off toward the nearest pond, only to trip over the legs of someone else.

"Ow." The girl she had tripped over had been reading a book. "Ano, you okay?" Sakura glanced up to meet dark blue eyes framed by messy black bangs- and a mist hiate-ate around the girls neck.

"No, I'm having a bad day . . . I'm guessing you're here for the chunin exams as well?" Sakura sat up as the girl pulled her legs up to her chest.

"Hai." The girl tilted her head, but grew wary as Naruto and Sasuke came up, her eyes flickering over the two boys. The dark haired one was wearing a black shirt with a white mask just around his neck and black short pants with blue sandals. The blonde was smaller than his teammates, and the black jacket and short pants made him look slightly smaller, despite the fluorescent orange stripes that ran down his sleeves and pants legs. His blue eyes were probably the most striking thing about him, the birthmarks on his face (they reminded her of whiskers) only accented his eyes. The mist genin gave them a slight nod before returning her attention to Sakura. "My team's representing Mist. Are you in it as well?"

"Yeah." The girl raised an eyebrow at the extremely unenthusiastic response Sakura gave.

"Ano, aren't most genins supposed to be excited about that?"

"Most genin teams don't tick off an opposing team the day before- ah!" Sakura stopped herself from saying anything more. The mist genin smiled, before standing.

"Well, I'm assuming you ran into the team from Suna then? My team's also ticked them off- well, my comrades did." The genin amended. "I don't hold grudges against people having bad days." She absently marked her book. "But I'll look forward to meeting you there, I'm Rin." She held out a hand to Sakura.

"Sakura." Sakura took the mist genin's hand, and was surprised when Rin pulled her to her feet.

"Alright then, Sakura-san." She waved and walked away.

"Ano . . . what just happened?" Sakura blinked, staring at where the mist genin had been.

"I think you now have someone aiming for you in the chunin exams as well." Sasuke deadpanned, although he was amused. "She obviously thought you were a worthy rival."

"Worthy rival?" Sakura actually squeaked the words out.

"That's why Naruto and I weren't as upset as you were with what happened with the Suna team. Kakashi-sensei mentioned that chunin exams can create rivalries not only in a village, but between other villages' nins as well." Sasuke waited for Sakura to do anything other than twitch. "You're actually quite fortunate, Naruto and I have to share, you've got your own rival to fight against."

Sakura's yell of horror made Sasuke smirk, highly amused at his female teammate's horror, while Naruto just shook his head.

"You know she's going to get inner sakura to throttle you later, right?" Naruto looked at Sasuke.

"Yeah, but it's nice to see the other shoe drop." Sasuke kept his smirk. Naruto shook his head and moved to remind Sakura they had to meet their sensei. Sometimes, Sasuke's sense of humor worried him.

* * *

Kakashi blinked as the trio arrived at the training ground after he did, Sakura looking ready to pummel someone. "Well, what excuse do you three have?"

"First we ran into Kohonmaru, who ticked off Sakura." Naruto offered.

"Then we met the Suna genin team, one of whom took an interest in me and Naruto." Sasuke added, and noted that Sakura had calmed down, finally. "Then Sakura met a mist genin who took an interest in her."

"I see . . . I take it Sakura doesn't think of it as a good thing?"

"She'll come around, I hope." Naruto offered, and earned a hit to his head as Sakura snapped out of her horror.

"Sensei, it can't be a good thing to have a rival ninja know about you!"

"That depends- most rivalries only know each other's name, and keep track of them through bingo books. It's not a friendly rivalry in any sense of the word, and it's rare for any actual contact beyond the first meeting." Sakura relaxed a little.

"Alright, then . . . but I still think it's a bad idea . . ." Kakashi patted her head.

"Tomorrow's the exam start, so I'll do a simple exercise with you three." Kakashi held up two bells. "I'm sure you remember the bell test?" All three blushed and looked away. "Ah, good, then that makes it easier. Get the bells from me before the timer goes off. I'll go easy on you for now, you'll need your strength for tomorrow." With that, he vanished into the trees.

"Naruto, Kage Bushin and Henge." Sasuke activated his sharigan. Naruto nodded, and an instant later, twelve clones appeared, four becoming Sasuke, red eyes included, four becoming Sakura, and the remaining four stayed as Naruto clones. Without a word, the groups moved away from each other, searching for their sensei.

Kakashi leaned against a tree, waiting. Last time, they hadn't been able to act like a team. In fact, they could barely even stand each other, and were way too individual in their methods. With the amount of time they had spent mending the frayed and easily breakable bonds, though, there were now times that just in a simple conversation they'd all be on the same page.

Especially Sasuke and Naruto, from what he remembered of the time where the two had worked in tandem to create traps to immobilize the 'nins' that had tried to recapture him. The two had worked in complete silence, Naruto taking the lead and Sasuke quietly following.

Well, he had given them enough time, now he had to go see what his unfortunate genin had come up with. Within half a minute of him moving from his position, he had dispatched one group of clones and dodged a swinging log. Within ten minutes he had dodged a lot of shuriken and kunai, and managed to dispatch two more groups of clones.

At fifteen minutes, he realized that his team was trying to herd him somewhere, and at twenty he realized Sakura had summoned two nin dogs to help them.

At thirty, he actually encountered Naruto and Sasuke, who seemingly had reverted back into their previous ways of competition. At thirty-two minutes, he realized that Sasuke and Naruto were actually working together to distract him. Thirty-two and a half minutes had him realizing that Sakura was probably going for the bells. When he blocked against Sakura, Kakashi realized that Naruto had used the same strategy that he had used against Zabuza's water prision in Wave.

Namely, misdirection.

At Thirty-three minutes, Naruto snagged the first bell and passed it to Sasuke. Kakashi quickly escaped, letting the genin regroup while he debated his next move.

At forty minutes, he tried genjutsu on the trio, only to have Sakura and Sasuke figure it out, Sakura having to get Naruto out. (He really needed to work with Naruto on that, genjutsu was a weak spot for most nins, admittedly, but Naruto shouldn't be falling for a simple one that easily.)

At forty five minutes, he discovered that his dogs actually had fickle loyalty as one of them stole the second bell for the trio.

"Dash . . . you went to their side for an ear scratch?" the small, and fast dog he'd named 'Dash' showed no remorse as Sakura scratched behind his ears. Well, Kakashi couldn't blame him, he'd enjoyed having _his_ ears scratched while he was a dog. "Well done you three- see how much easier that was as a team?"

"Hai, sensei." Sakura smiled as she dismissed the dogs she summoned. "Though you were going easy on us."

"Only in the beginning. Naruto, Sasuke, that was clever to distract me by repeating your previous performance." Sasuke and Naruto smiled- actually, Naruto grinned and Sasuke smirked. "It was an even better tactic to have me defend against Sakura while Naruto went for the bell."

"Well, Naruto did say he learned to pickpocket . . ." Sakura crossed her arms.

"When did he say that?" Kakashi frowned, trying to remember.

"Well, you were a dog then, sensei."

"Ah, that explains it." His memory of that time was patchy at best, though some things were clearer than others. "Well, now that this test is over, what do you want to do?"

"Ramen?" Naruto's hopeful tone and bambi-eyed expression made them all smile.

"Might as well, better than cooking."

"I can't, my mom's expecting me to have dinner with her." Sakura apologized. "But I'll take a raincheck." She headed off to her home after a round of good-byes and plans to meet up early the next day.

* * *

After Naruto and Sasuke had eaten with Kakashi, they headed home to the Uchiha estate, leaving their sensei to think alone.

It wasn't long before he found himself at the wall of names, almost idly finding the three he kept coming to look at.

"Sorry I haven't been here as often . . . my genin have been keeping me busy." Wait, when did they become _his_ genin? Kakashi blinked, the thought popping into his head suddenly. They were his genin team, sure, but why did he feel the need to be possessive about it? He sighed, running a hand through his hair. Near as he could tell, the possessive streak had started while he was a dog. It wasn't a bad thing, just . . . well, it wasn't something he was used to.

"Ah, Kakashi, I see you're visiting." The Sandaime came up behind him. " . . . Are you alright?"

" . . . sort of. I just realized that I haven't been visiting as often or for as long as I used to, because of my genin, team." No one would have commented on the slip, but it bothered him to say that they were 'his genin', instead of 'his genin team'.

"And that worries you?" Of course, trying to hide that from the Sandaime would have been easier if the old man didn't know him so well.

"A little, yes."

"Looking towards the future of the children does not mean you're ignoring your past. If anything, it means that you've finally learned from it." The Sandaime smiled. "They know you're not ignoring them, Kakashi, if anything, they're probably happy that you're finally focusing on the present and the future, rather than the past."

" . . . I don't want to forget them again. I remember the feeling of knowing that my memories were slipping away and being unable to stop it. It scared me, more than anything else, because I sometimes felt that I had nothing to support the idea that I had ever been human." One gloved hand absently brushed over one name. "My memory, though it's mostly returned, still has some gaps."

"You won't forget them again. Just because you don't spend every day re-living the past, doesn't mean you'll forget it." The Sandaime placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "Trust me on this, I've lived long enough to know what regrets to keep, and which to accept as unchangeable. If you'd abandoned those children's future because you had focused on your past . . . it would have been a regret that would have eaten away at you for years. You can always make new memories to define you, Kakashi, rather than letting your past define you." The silence that followed was filled with understanding. "And if the patches of your memory are something you need back, then Inochi could help you." The Sandaime removed his hand.

"No. I don't need those memories back." Kakashi's voice was quiet but firm. "I can make new memories to replace them." He turned and gave an eye smile to the Hokage. "Thank you." The Hokage nodded, and the two then lapsed into silence once more.

Tomorrow, the future of the genin would be decided, for now, there was time to reflect on the past.

**Enter Rin. Rin and her team are actually from a story a friend and I wrote . . . wow, four years ago. We wanted to break away from the Naruto story line and came up with the idea about writing about a mist genin team. It was a fun project, and maybe someday I'll type it up to post it. As stated before, she won't have much of a backstory, or screen time, she's just here to provide another point of view on occasion when I need another character.**

**Anyway, leave a review, please.**


	3. Tomorrow's Trials

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, and events HAVE BEEN ALTERED from Canon. You have been fairly warned, and this is my last warning to those who prefer canon.**

**Sorry for not updating in February, that month was too short and way too busy with papers and midterms.**

**Tomorrow's Trials**

Sasuke woke up just five minutes before his alarm clock went off. Glaring at the clock as if it was its fault he had missed five extra minutes of sleep, he reluctantly got up and started to get ready. Naruto was already up, the blonde's presence barely registering as Sasuke entered the kitchen.

"Morning." Naruto grinned, happily munching on breakfast.

"Morning." Sasuke muttered, slightly annoyed that Naruto was already hyper. Some things never changed, Naruto's enthusiasm for any type of chance to prove himself was definitely one of them. Actually, Naruto's attitude hadn't really changed that much, it was a toned down a bit, sure- the energy that normally went to Naruto being loud and obnoxious, had become an intensity that would be dangerous in time- but still completely Naruto. "Ready to go?"

"You bet!"

Sakura smiled as her teammates walked up to their meeting spot on the bridge. "Shall we?" '**Shannaro!**' She ignored Inner Sakura in favor of checking her teammates' gear.

"Let's go!" Naruto lead the way to the building.

Getting past the Genjutsu wasn't an issue for the team, though Naruto almost fell for it. Entering the exam room, Sasuke noticed that the Suna team was already there, as was the Mist team. A few other teams from a few other villages and two teams from Kohona were already there as well.

"Looks like your rival doesn't care much about other teams." Sakura shot an annoyed look at Sasuke before looking at the mist genin. Rin had her nose in a book, her two teammates were beside her- one, a girl who was sitting on the desk by Rin, had shoulder length blonde hair with a purple tint to it, the other, a boy who was standing right behind her and looking over her shoulder, had black and white hair. While the other two were glancing around, Rin's focus stayed on her book.

"Considering all the killing intent being thrown around, I'm surprised she can read at all." Naruto's comment drew attention to the fact that the other teams were trying to psyche out each other with killing intent. Team Seven chose to lean against the back wall, slightly out of the way of other teams.

"Suna Team doesn't seem to care either." Sakura pointed out. The trio were somewhat patiently waiting as well- though the instant Naruto and Sasuke glanced over, Gaara looked up at them. It was just a moment, before he looked away at a new team entering. "Okay then . . ." Sakura squeaked, flustered.

Sakura had mostly regained her composure when-

"Sakura-san!"

"Sasuke-kun!"

-Teams Gai and Ten had arrived. Ino and Lee had automatically zoomed in on the objects of their (unrequited) affections and Shikamaru and Neji both looked like they wanted to be anywhere else than in that room.

"Hey, Chouji, can I have a chip?" Chouji nodded and passed Naruto the bag. "I didn't know your team was entering."

"We weren't going to, but when Ino found out Sakura-chan was entered, she hounded both Shikamaru and I until we agreed." Chouji glanced at Shikamaru as the lazy genin sank into the chair.

"This is just too troublesome . . ." Shikamaru sighed. "Oi, Neji, why don't you sit down?" Neji glared at him, then moved to grab Lee.

"What's his problem?" Naruto tilted his head. "He still mad that you beat him at Shougi?"

"Dunno, don't really care, either. It's his problem, not ours." Shikamaru glanced at Naruto, and frowned. "Don't try it, Naruto. He's not someone that will listen to anyone he thinks is inferior."

"I didn't say anything?" Naruto and Chouji looked at Shikamaru, thoroughly confused. Team Eight arrived, and Naruto was distracted by Kiba.

"Shikamaru?" Chouji prodded his friend. "What was that supposed to mean?"

" . . . It's nothing." Shikamaru just dismissed the topic and was suddenly being yelled at by Ino (who had once again been dismissed by Sasuke).

"Will you lot pipe down? This isn't a picnic!" An older Leaf Genin came over.

"Who the heck are you?" Kiba (and Akamaru) growled.

"I'm Kabuto. And if you don't want trouble, I'd suggest you stop being so noisy. There are a lot of teams willing to gun for any opponents they view weak." At that point, the twelve noticed that most of the killing intent was aimed at them, as well as most of the stares.

"We're not scared, besides, we don't need to try and psyche our opponents out with such a weak trick." Sakura flipped her braid over her shoulder, green eyes flashing at those staring. Naruto and Sasuke gaped.

"Crap, when did Inner Sakura get out?" Naruto hissed to Sasuke.

"Must've happened when Sakura noticed the killing intent, you know how timid she can get." Sasuke muttered back. At this point, anything could set Inner Sakura into a rampage. "We really don't need this right now." But apparently all that Sakura's comment earned was a brief surge of killing intent before the other genin turned away, realizing she wasn't phased. Sasuke glanced at the mist team, to notice Rin's eyes studying Sakura instead of her book and the mist genin was smirking.

"We don't need your help." Sakura added to Kabuto, before going to stand by her teammates. Only Naruto and Sasuke saw the switch back to the real Sakura as she blushed and ducked her head a bit so her bangs would hide it.

"Well put." Sasuke smirked at his female teammate, making her blush harder.

"I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss me. I've taken this exam six times already, and you all are clearly rookies."

"Six times, huh?" Sasuke raised an eyebrow. Naruto hit his shoulder. "I didn't say it, dobe."

"You were _thinking_ it, Teme."

"Now you're a mindreader?" Kabuto internally groaned. This was not going to be easy if all these genin- especially the Uchiha- had such short attention spans.

"If you'd like I could give you some information to help." Kabuto showed the cards he carried. "I've been able to get information on everyone taking this exam." That got their attention- and suspicion.

"How? I thought only the Hokage and those jounin working on this exam knew anything about the participants." Shikamaru even lifted his head off the desk to look at Kabuto.

"I have my sources." Kabuto shrugged. "Name anyone, and I can show you their card."

"Alright . . ." Naruto smiled. "How about yours?" That surprised Kabuto. While the genin's attention had been hooked, he hadn't expected such a disinterest in the other opponents.

"I made the cards, why would I have a card for myself or for my teammates?"

"You did say 'Everyone'." The Aburame pointed out. Kabuto wanted to hit his head against the wall. Why had he agreed to this?

Ah yes, his teammates had no social skills and he was the better actor.

"Then I should have said everyone else, then. But seriously, choose a name."

"Alright, Uzumaki Naruto." Naruto kicked Sasuke – who had been the one to voice the name- as Kabuto shuffled the cards and pulled out the one in question. Kabuto ignored the whispered argument that briefly followed it.

"'Uzumaki Naruto, born October Tenth'- ouch, rough day, huh?" That actually earned him killing intent from the blonde. "Sorry, 'Orphan, failed academy exams three times, passed an alternate exam to be Genin, Missions: Mostly D rank with two C rank, one B rank and one A rank.'" Kabuto blinked at the note in surprise. "You've taken an A rank mission?" Yes, he had written all the information himself, but he had written it down so he didn't have to remember all of it. Heck, the only thing he had ever remembered about Uzumaki Naruto was that he was the container of the Kyuubi and a prankster.

"Started out as C, actually, then things got dicey." Naruto shrugged. "Same thing happened with the B rank."

"Literally." Sasuke's comment earned a hit from Sakura. The trio ignored the stares from their fellow leaf genin. "And Technically, both times our Sensei and our allies took out the majority of the problem, we just defended ourselves to stay alive." No one paid attention to Sasuke's quick glance at Naruto when he said the word 'allies'.

"That's still amazing." Ino was looking at Sasuke starry-eyed.

"Kabuto-sempai, how many villages are participating?" Tenten smiled sweetly at the older genin, who promptly pulled out another card.

"Well, Cloud and Iwa are out, they're still not that happy about the war." Kabuto smirked. "As for the rest, one team from Mist, One from Suna- both of those are more for diplomatic reasons. Grass and Rain have Five teams each, a surprise from rain, with that war going on." He listed a couple of smaller hidden villages that were more like civilians with Ninja abilities. "And then there is Hidden Sound's team- it's a new village, so there's probably not much to them-" On cue, the sound Team attacked. Kiba and Lee reacted to the threat, so did (to her teammates horror and everyone else's surprise) Sakura. Or rather, Inner Sakura.

"Don't you dare underestimate us!" The boy that resembled a mummy hissed, despite having been kicked by Lee. The potential fight drew everyone's attention. "Sound isn't a place for weaklings!" A splash of water hit him.

"Neither is Mist, but you don't see us attacking the genin of the hosting village." Rin had put the book away, and had gotten to her feet. "The exam hasn't even started yet, hotheads, you could get disqualified for that bonehead move." Her two companions nodded. The Sand team had shifted, and one could almost hear something rattling in the gourd. Meanwhile Sasuke shifted so he could attack the boy that Sakura had crossed Kunai with. (Kiba had ended up blocking the girl on Sound's team.) Naruto just behind him, hands half ready to sign Kage Bushin in a minute.

"Since when does a Mist nin care?" A grass nin asked. The Mist boy tensed as if to leap at the Grass nin. That single movement made the entire atmosphere of the room become more volatile.

Any move or action by any genin could send the room into a bloodbath quicker than lightning.

This, of course, was what a certain Special Jounin and Head of Interrogation had been waiting for.

"That's enough!" As Morino Ibiki stepped forward to take control, he didn't fail to notice the animosity lingering in the back of the room. He paid attention to each one of them, and noticed that most of the genin were quick to pretend nothing had even happened.

As they all headed to their random seating, and looked at him with poorly concealed expectation, Ibiki couldn't help the small thought that they were all too green.

* * *

Kakashi sank into an overstuffed couch that belonged in one of the little used waiting rooms in the hokage tower. The window gave him a perfect view of the building where his genin- and several others- would be starting the first exam. His eyes flicked to the door as Asuma and Kurenai entered, both quickly masking their surprise (and disappointment) when they saw him.

"Here to make sure no one gets thrown out a window?" The half-hearted joke fell flat, and both Jounins sat on the other couch- closer than acquaintances, but not as close as lovers.

"Ah, I see this is where the instructors with rookie teams have come to support their youthful students!" Gai strode in, not as flashy as normal, but still enough of a start to make the already seated jounins tense and reach for their kunai. Gai moved so he could stand by the window.

"Despite reading the reports, I never quite understood what happened." Kakashi knew he had surrised the others by talking first, but it was a small question that had bothered him. "What happened after N-. . ." He cut himself off, unsure how to finish, before thinking of a different question. "What happened to the others that were like me?"

"The chakra explosion killed several of them, knocked out that 'Lord', too. Anbu caught the rest, but apparently they were trained that once two of them were in a cage, no matter how small, they had to fight to the death." Asuma lit a cigarette. "None of them were saved."

"And those so-called 'ninja' didn't put up much of a fight once Anbu found them in the boys' traps." Kurenai frowned. "I don't think the Lord lasted ten minutes with Interrogation."

Kakashi didn't respond, trying not to imagine what could have been if he hadn't managed to escape. Two more weeks till the next Icha Icha Paradise came out and he had managed to finish all of the ones he had.

Small talk persisted for a long time, and they all watched Anko launch herself at the window to make her entrance- and freak out as many genin as possible.

"Well, that's one down, two to go." Asuma noted. The Jounins had stood up and watched the genin exit the building to head to the next exam. "Ibiki should be making his report soon, shall we go?" For an answer, he was almost left alone in the room.

Several other Jounin, the ones that hadn't had their team drop out of the first exam, or mess up on the pre-exam, were there as well. The Hokage was sitting at a desk, Iruka standing next to him, and a few Anbu were behind him (despite being hidden, they all knew they were in the room- no one left a Kage unprotected). Ibiki didn't react to the crowd as he entered the room, just focused on the hokage.

"Well, Here's the list of the ones that passed. Few more teams than I thought." Ibiki handed the list to the Hokage. "Almost had a brawl in the beginning- Your Sound genin were a little touchy about their village and tried to attack a leaf genin who made a comment." He addressed the sound jounin, a man with raven hair in a pony tail with two sections of hair on either side of his face.

"I apologize, they can be a little hot-blooded at times." He dipped his head to Ibiki. "I trust no one was injured?"

"They were blocked by other leaf genin who came to his aide. But it wasn't just Sound team and leaf genin- your mist genin splashed one of sound with water telling him to cool off." The mist jounin was a bleach-blonde man with muscles and a trident strapped to his back. He looked a little resigned, as if he had expected no less. "The dark-haired girl." That made the Mist Jounin blink and show surprise.

"I take it that's not usual?" The Hokage looked at him.

"I would have expected it of her teammates, Hokage-sama, not her." He crossed his arms and shook his head, as if still trying to wrap his head around the idea.

"Well, one of the grass genin taunted her and your boy looked ready to lunge at him, which of course means that all the genin in the room were ready to go at a moment's notice. I intervened at that moment before things got worse." The Mist Jounin nodded. Kakashi noticed that the Sand jounin looked a bit relieved at that.

"So, what's the next round?" A female Waterfall jounin asked.

"Forest of Death, they'll be in there for about 3 days, so you should feel free to take a break and relax, We will notify you when you'll be needed." The Hokage nodded at them, and the foreign jounin filed out, along with a few other leaf jounin.

Kakashi, Asuma, Kurenai and Gai remained, and Iruka looked at them in mild confusion.

"I take it you want to hear how the rookies did?" Ibiki looked at them. "They were right in the thick of it. I believe the Inuzuka of Kurenai's blocked one Sound, Lee of Team Gai blocked another, and your pinkette Haruno blocked the third, Hatake." Kakashi frowned under the mask. "I noticed that she seemed to have a pretty quick mood swing to embarrassed right after it." Ibiki looked at him. Kurenai turned to Kakashi.

"Has she had trouble suppressing her inner personality?" Kurenai looked at him concerned. "Inochi-san or I could erase it-" Kakashi waved her off.

"Sakura knows full well what she's doing- besides, she turned down your offer of erasing the personality before, I won't go behind her back and request it." Kurenai frowned, but backed down. "What did Naruto and Sasuke do?"

"Uchiha moved closer to Sakura and her opponent, and Uzumaki looked ready to make hand seals if needed. Nara and the older Hyuuga looked disinterested, but They were still behind the others." Ibiki looked at Kakashi again. "Actually, Hatake, you might be interested to know it's Uzumaki's fault that more teams passed." That made Kakashi raise his visible eyebrow. "I weeded out most of them by making them wait for a verbal tenth question. If they didn't think they could continue, they raised their hands and their teams were escorted out. I thought Uzumaki was going to raise his hand, but instead his slammed it against the table and yelled at me to, and I quote, 'say the damn question already'." Iruka looked at Ibiki with a mix of worry and amusement. "Kid said he didn't care if he failed, he was still going to do it, because it didn't matter how long it took, he was going to pass the exams. Well, after that, none of the remaining teams would raise their hands- some teams that had been about to stopped and seemed to follow Uzumaki's lead." The corner of Ibiki's mouth twitched. "Kid got a lot of respectful stares from all the remaining genin- even one of the ones from sound- when I announced those remaining had all passed the first test."

"I wouldn't have expected anything less from Kohona's number one unpredictable ninja." Kakashi smiled under the mask, the warm feeling in his chest burning a little more as pride for his student was added to it. He shouldn't have been so surprised, though, Naruto was known for doing a lot of surprising things. He glanced at Iruka who looked just as proud as he felt. Absently, he made a note to talk to the chunin about Naruto- Naruto still made a point of visiting the chunin on a regular basis.

A few minutes later, after some more small talk, the four jounin left the meeting room, Kakashi quietly heading to the Forest of Death's entrance to see what was going on. He landed on a tree branch in time to see his genin rush into their gate. He smiled as Naruto created henged clones to send out to cover more ground.

"Be careful you three." He muttered silently. '_Kami watch over them._'

**To be continued . . . **

**Alright, since everyone who does AU always insists on practically copying and redescribing every single thing that happens in the chunin exams without much altering, I decided to go a different route and give some other points of view. **

**I had to do the opening of the first test, though, because certain characters had certain reactions that will be key to later events. (Yes, Sakura is one of them)**

**Any discrepancies seen in this chapter will be explained further on in the story. I know what I'm doing. **

**The one thing that I'm never sure of, however, is the spelling of Kiba and Ino's last names. I always mess them up at least once in a story, and websites aren't that reliable when it comes to the spelling- so if I've spelled them wrong, feel free to correct me. **

**That said, please review!**


	4. Tomorrow's Pain

**Disclaimer: Let's think, I'm writing on FFdotnet, I regularly complain about schoolwork and occasionally my job, and my stories are different than what you see in the manga. Conclusion? I don't own Naruto and never will.**

**Tomorrow's Pain**

The next morning after the genin had entered the forest of death, Kakashi was ignoring the looks his companion was getting as he dealt the cards with his usual gusto. He had been bored enough to have accepted one of Gai's challenges.

Well, maybe it wasn't just Gai attracting stares- two jounin playing 'Go Fish' on a park table in the middle of the day was bound to attract attention.

"Gai, got any fours?"

"Yes." The green beast of Kohona was a little put out that his rival had refused sparring and racing, though it quickly vanished as he got into the game. "Any Kings?"

"Go fish." Kakashi ignored Gai's running commentary of what he'd do if the next card or turn lacked the card he needed. "Any Queens?" He was going to concentrate on the game and not think of staking out the forest- the attempt at the mantra fell flat before it even got to move.

"Go fish!" Kakashi drew a card out of the pile, and glanced in the direction of the forest. Medic teams had already extracted a few genin- one team was already killed, and a few of the jounins that patrolled it had reported feeling Kyuubi's chakra- though it had gone to fast for them to pinpoint it.

_You three better be alright._

* * *

Things were far from alright with team 7. Sakura glanced at her two unconscious teammates and was somewhat grateful that her exhaustion kept her from freaking out over the fact that whoever that Grass nin was, not only had he been targeting Sasuke but he knew how to immobilize Naruto- or rather, Kyuubi.

On the upside, they'd managed to get a scroll from some Rain nin, so all her teammates needed to do was wake up and they'd be in the clear to get out of the insane forest.

"Damnit, of all the times for both of you to be knocked out." After they had made the mistake of falling asleep after Kakashi had turned back to normal and the strange nins immobilized, Kakashi had drilled the fact that a nin didn't sleep unless they knew they had backup capable of taking out enemies. (Exception being the very rare solo mission that some high-level jounins and Anbu might take, then one had to sleep in cat naps.)

Which she didn't have, since both her teammates were down and she couldn't risk using too much chakra to summon nin dogs- she needed a little more chakra to return before she could healthily do so.

With a sigh, Sakura replayed the previous evenings events. They had managed to corner and take out a rain team with Naruto's henged Kage bushin, which had gotten them their scroll (the rain team had underestimated them, severely) and on their way to find a suitable place to rest, They were attacked by a snake. (She had freaked out when Naruto got swallowed, and judging from the large fireball Sasuke had thrown, trying to kill the snake, she hadn't been the only one.) Then the grass nin had appeared, with another huge snake. (She was going to have nightmares of those snakes when she did close her eyes, she just knew it.) The genjutsu he had used had been nerve-shaking, to put it mildly. Inner Sakura had recovered quicker and snapped Sasuke out of it, just as the first snake (which had stopped paying attention to the battle and had looked ill) exploded via multiple Kage Bushin. Naruto had been quick and ready to attack, landing next to them.

Sakura smiled as she glanced at the sleeping form of Naruto. It was strange, but Sasuke had been a little shaken by the effects of the genjutsu (not an unusual occurrence, it took the mind more time to recover from shock), and had grabbed Naruto's arm, looking like he wanted to run. Quite a different persona from the Sasuke she rembered, that had faced Zabuza and Haku in Wave. Naruto however, had just glared at him, and told him to shut up and help send the grass nin packing.

The trio had gone on guard at that point, the grass nin had just laughed at them. The second snake lunged forward, and Naruto accessed Kyuubi's chakra, slamming the snake's head down.

The next part had been humiliating- Sasuke and herself had rushed the grass nin, but he moved too fast for them. He sent her flying with just a blow, and despite Sasuke scoring a hit with his kunai, the nin had grabbed Sasuke's arm. Naruto had attacked before anything else happened, but the nin threw Sasuke like a ragdoll, then had used his _tongue_ to hold Naruto away from him and slammed his hand into Naruto's stomach, Kyuubi's chakra abruptly cutting off. Naruto had held onto consciousness long enough to slam a kunai into the guy's tongue pinning it to the grass nin's own arm. (Again, this would be nightmare material at a future date.)

Even after being sent flying into a tree, Sakura had been able to focus on catching Naruto. Well, 'catching' had actually been letting him land on top of her. That same moment though, had cost Sasuke. He had lost focus when he saw Naruto and Sakura hurt, and had been about to run to them when the nin grabbed him.

She had looked up in time to see the nin sink his teeth through cloth into Sasuke's shoulder, the result being Sasuke _screamed_ before losing consciousness.

Half dazed from Naruto landing on her, Sakura had cried out for her teammate. It was almost a relief when the grass nin had tossed him at her, still alive and breathing.

"_Don't worry, your teammates are more valuable to me alive. If the Uchiha survives, tell him it's a gift to help him to his goals."_ With that parting remark, the grass nin had left.

Sakura scowled. She couldn't imagine why the grass nin had said that, but then again, she couldn't imagine why or how anyone outside the village knew about Naruto and Kyuubi. Sakura wrapped her arms around herself, but still clutched her kunai. The hokage had explained everything- or at least, all that they needed to know- about what the sealing meant for Naruto. He'd explained that there were eight others like Naruto, affiliated to different villages, and most were either weapons of destruction or completely shunned by their own village. Some were actually both.

_Which would have happened to Naruto, if he hadn't been able to get Iruka-sensei on his side?_ It wasn't a nice thought, and she pushed it away. Naruto had team 7, he wouldn't be an outcast. Or some weapon, either, she would not allow that to happen. She glanced at Naruto, another worried frown crossing her face. She could still see the seal on Naruto's stomach, peaking out from where his shirt had hitched up from her dragging him to the hiding spot. The hokage explained that the seal would only be visible when the Fox's chakra was in use, and Naruto had been knocked out, so it should have vanished.

And as curious as she was to see what it looked like, she wasn't going to let her teammates, or herself, get killed just because she let her guard down due to curiosity.

This once again led to the problem of sleep and summoning (exhaustion making her thoughts go in circles). Reaching into a pouch at her side, she pulled out a small bottle. Inside it were pills of various colors, blue water pills (meant to keep de-hydration at bay, not act as a replacement) green food pills, yellow antidote pills (meant to slow the more generic types of poison if not outright cure them) and red soldier pills. The last would boost her chakra stores and give her energy for about six hours.

She could practically hear Iruka-sensei. _"Soldier pills can harm as well as help you, and there have been cases of ninjas becoming addicted to them or even dying because they took too many in a short time span. Do NOT rely on the pills to get you out of a situation. They are meant to be a last resort, and a last resort only."_ Iruka-sensei's lecture had been clear, of course, and she had remembered being frustrated with Naruto when he continued to pester Iruka about it, foolishly telling Naruto that she would never think of using the pills, _ever_. Now that she was sitting in the middle of an exam, she wished she had paid more attention to the scenarios that Naruto had conjured up- they had been outlandish, but each scenario had had a grain of possibility. Such as being alone and out numbered. If she remembered correctly, she had not only made the statement of not using the pills, but had told Naruto it was impossible for a nin to lose their team and end up alone.

"I was such an idiot." But the trip down memory lane was forcibly stopped as she returned her focus to the pills. "They wouldn't have been invented if it hadn't been out of nessecity." She muttered, mulling over her options. If she asked, any of the nin-dogs she was capable of summoning would stay and use their own chakra to do so. She knew there was a time period of about three hours before she could safely take another pill without fear of falling ill or burning out- and those numbers were only if she remained an inactive guard. If she did have to face an opponent, the results would be less kind- the amount of energy and her time limit could be drastically different, and depending on her health afterwards . . . well, she might not be able to take another pill without compromising her health severely.

_But wouldn't that be worth it to protect them?_

'_**Shannaro! So what the heck are you waiting around for? Take it before an enemy comes!**__'_ Inner Sakura shouted_. '__**You gotta protect them!**__'_

"I don't want to rely on such a crutch . . ." Sakura muttered, gripping the bottle tighter as she glanced around.

'_**Tch! They got healers that specialize in fixing this damage!**__'_

"Recovery could take years . . ."

'_**So? Naruto doesn't care how long it takes, he'll make it, remember? You going to let Dead last show you up! Determination and Will is all that drives him, and it's all you need too!**__'_ Well, Inner Sakura had a point- wait.

"Why am I even arguing this?" _Crap, I'm arguing- out-loud, at that- with my inner voice, didn't Kurenai-sensei __warn__ me about this? I'm going to get myself a split personality at this rate._ With a sigh Sakura took out a food pill and a soldier pill. "Better safe than sorry, and there is no way I'm going to let Naruto and Sasuke get killed on my watch." She downed both, then checked on Sasuke's fever.

Still no change from before, and the antidote pill she'd given him should have worked by now- so it wasn't a actual poison. Sakura pulled away, re-wetting the cloth she had been using. Once that was done, she focused on summoning.

"Hey Bull, I'm in a bit of a fix." Even as she explained to the dog, Sakura and Inner Sakura were in agreement on one thing.

_I wish Kakashi-sensei was here._

* * *

"Oh my god." The mist genin Rin breathed. Her team had come across another team- or rather, their remains. "What in Sussano's name did this?"

"Looks like they got squashed like grapes." The boy noted, "Over-ripe ones at that."

"I'm going to be sick." The smaller girl muttered, and quickly threw up in the bushes. The boy went silent, glancing around the area. Rin ignored them and found a forehead protector, heavily coated in blood. She wiped the blood away to see the symbol.

"Waterfall. This was the second Waterfall team."

"You better put that down and wash your hands!" Her female teammate still looked pale.

"I'm wearing gloves." Rin frowned, studying one of the sides where metal met cloth. Something other than blood was there- Rin paled and dropped the hiate-ate, stepping away and glancing around all in one fluid movement. Quickly, she signed to her teammates to head to cover, only once they were by a small stream did she halt.

"What's wrong?" The smaller girl looked up at Rin, concerned as her usually stoic teammate was still pale.

"Sand. There was sand stuck in the forehead protector." Rin took a deep breath, trying to calm down.

"You think the sand _genin_ did _that!_" The boy hissed. "That's, they're _genin_!" Rin regained her composure.

"One of the previous Kazekages' was able to use an attack called Iron Sand, it used sand to crush his opponents." Rin softly informed her teammates. Noting their looks, she blushed. "What? I like reading old Bingo book entries- there's an entire room of them just off the missions' office."

"You need a hobby." The boy patted her head. "Let's avoid the Suna team, then, and focus on others."

"But which one could possibly have done _that_? There's no sand here." The blonde looked at her teammates. Rin closed her eyes, envisioning the almost brawl in the exam room the day before. The sand team had made no threats, and she clearly remembered the rattling sound in the gourd that one of them carried.

"They brought it with them- or rather, the short red-head did. The one _you_ called a panda." Rin added drily, looking at her small blonde teammate. The other girl flushed. "We should be fine, though, if we run into them, we stick near water. That gives us an elemental advantage over sand." The mist team continued on.

* * *

Throughout the rest of the forest, genin teams were traveling, fighting, winning or loosing and some were even dying.

However, in one area of the forest Miturashi Anko was coughing and mentally cursing her former Sensei to the depths of hell.

"You look awful." Morino Ibiki informed her as he found her, earning a glare that had sent lesser men running. "He's really here?"

"Yeah, the bastard . . . don't know what he's after, but he killed three grass genin to do it." Anko wasn't a sympathetic person by nature, but anyone who was a victim to her former sensei tended to pull out not only sympathy but her protection as well. "What the Hokage say?"

"Politics. He can't stop the exams, not with so many people coming. The Kazekage himself has even expressed interest in seeing the third exam." Ibiki passed her a water bottle. Around them, hidden from their sight, Anbu roamed, trying to find the snake. "We can't even get the jounins who have teams still in the exam to help, either, because of the possibility that one of them might try to help their students."

"Damn it." Whether it was because of the lack of help due to the wonderful and incredibly fragile web spun between the other villages, or the idea that some of their own jounins would not be informed, Ibiki didn't care to figure out. "I'll bet that bastard planned on that."

"I don't recomend taking loosing bets." Ibiki and Anko both whirled to see a familiar face that they'd hadn't seen in a long time. "Tsunade-hime does, and that tends to cost her."

"Jiraiya-sama!" Anko blinked, a Anbu with a tiger mask waved, signaling it _was_ Jiraiya and not an imposter, before vanishing into shadow. "I didn't know you were around."

"His movements has indicated something of interest in Kohona, but I've been hanging around since that incident with Hatake and his students. I felt the Chakra flares last night, and Sandaime filled me in as much as possible. How about you fill me in on the rest?"

"As long as you don't expect me to pose for you." Anko gave him a look.

"I wouldn't- okay, so maybe I would dream of it but I certainly wouldn't ask you to!" Jiraiya looked offended. "Now, let's run through what happened."

"I was checking the gates along the perimeter when I found the three grass genins . . ."

**Another chapter down, I know it's short, but next chapter will be longer- I'm trying to make sure I can tweak the story so I don't spend my time on re-writing cannon, you all know the story by now, so I can't imagine you need me to describe everything over again. (If you don't know the story, then I've not spoiled too much for you, you can still read the manga and find it interesting.)**

**A note on the soldier pills. Kiba and Chouji use them in this time period- while Kiba gives one to Akamaru with little issue, Chouji's use (I'm aware that the three pills are used for Akimichi clan's jutsu, but you cannot deny they are simply variations on the soldier pill other nins use) puts him in the hospital- leaving me to believe that they can be very dangerous if used incorrectly.**


	5. Tomorrow's Choices

**Tomorrow's Choices**

"Now listen, in a few minutes, the brats are going to be summoning you- you already know what you have to tell them, but you need to ask them if they encountered a man capable of controlling large snakes- aka, Orochimaru. He snuck in disguised as a grass nin." Anko had scrambled to get all the chunin together for a last debrief. And from the horror on some of their faces, she was regretting how she had said it, but they needed to know. "If they say yes, take them to the top of the tower, we'll get their jounin instructor and talk about what happened."

"You think it's possible?" A female chunin who had been an instructor murmured to Iruka, eyes wide.

"Miturashi-san wouldn't have told us if it wasn't." Iruka muttered back. He was praying that none of his students had gotten attacked. It was favoritism, but those gennin he had taught in his class were ones that he would always worry about. (Most Chunins either taught one year group all the years, or helped at the academy for one- it was a mandatory thing that chunin with enough field experience had to do.)

Perhaps that was why, when he was summoned to the rooms that held team seven, his first reaction was to grab all three and race them to an infirmary. (it was barely suppressed)

"What happened?" Iruka noted that Sakura's hair was shorter, Naruto had his arms across his stomach as if to protect it, and Sasuke looked more afraid than Iruka had ever seen him. They were all bruised and bloodied; it was obvious that this exam had been too rough on them. _Hatake-san, what were you thinking? They weren't ready!_

Sakura looked conflicted, glancing at Naruto (an action, Iruka was surprised to see, that was copied by Sasuke). The blonde glanced at his teammates, and then turned towards Iruka.

"We got attacked by this Grass nin with a long tongue and two huge snakes." Naruto stated it the same as one would the weather. "We kind of got pounded."

"Kind of?" Iruka repeated. Since when had Naruto been able to understate anything? "Well, this makes things a bit different; you're going to have to come with me to report what happened to Miturashi-san." The three looked at each other. "You're not in trouble."

* * *

Kakashi wasn't sure he had heard the Hokage correctly, but since Jiraya and Ibiki were both there . . . "Why weren't we told he was around?"

"There was a concern that some jounin might take that time to help out their teams." Kakashi frowned, understanding what hadn't been said. For the first time, he wondered if he had rushed his gennin too soon- even Gai, easily the most reckless ninja around, had waited a year before nominating his team.

"Then why am I here?" Some part of him knew the answer, but he was quite content to be ignorant- oh, who was he trying to kid?

"Because your team got into a fight with him." Anko entered, looking upset and rubbing her shoulder. "Iruka's bringing them up."

Like Iruka, Kakashi's first impression was to grab all three and get them to a med nin. Guilt and concern started to eat at his gut even though outwardly nothing showed.

"I thought you said we just had to talk to Miturashi-san?" Naruto looked up at Iruka almost accusingly.

"Anko!" The trio jumped at Anko's shout. "Miturashi-san was my mother, thank you very much." While the Hokage ignored Anko's correction, and Jiraiya didn't know her well, the three adult males stared at her as if she had grown another head. Anko didn't actually care what she was called (a good example being that she came when a jounin called out 'bitch-lady', grant it, he was in traction for a week, but she had still responded to that). "And you are making a report to me, but the hokage decided to tag along and bring some support- Ibiki-teme (Anko ignored his warning growl, the two had worked together long enough that it was actually a term of endearment, but he didn't like her using that when talking to others about him.) is here since he's also in charge of exams. You might want to sit, though, normally reports are given while standing, but you three look awful." She paused and sniffed the air. "You smell bad too."

"You get swallowed by a snake and see how you smell afterwards." Naruto muttered. The adults all stared at each other in surprise. Naruto gently tugged Sakura to the bench, and Kakashi moved to check on team seven's flower (a term of endearment started by Gai during one of the training sessions the two teams had together). She was trembling slightly.

"Alright brats, start from the beginning." Anko 'encouraged'. "You first, Uchiha-gaki."

"We'd gotten the second scroll we needed and were on our way to the tower when Naruto got swallowed by a large snake." Sasuke glanced at Naruto. "A second snake appeared with the weird grass nin (the one with the long tongue) riding it. I froze up, but a moment later the snake that swallowed Naruto exploded- he'd used Kage Bushin to form a bunch of clones that made the snake burst." Iruka and Kakashi both felt strangely proud at that. "The nin used a genjutsu, and Sakura snapped out of it first-" at that Kakashi felt Sakura wince (he had a hand on her shoulder for comfort). "- and then we fought, since we couldn't run away- I . . . wanted to, but Naruto pointed out that he would follow . . ." Sasuke stopped. Kakashi winced.

"I got mad because it looked like he was going to kill us." Naruto took over. "I used the giant fuzzball's chakra-" Anko and Ibiki both tried not to let their amusement at Naruto calling the Kyuubi no Kitsune a 'giant fuzzball' show. "- but I'm not really sure how. The guy knew what it was- he called me Kyuubi's jinchurriki, and used his tongue to keep me from landing a real hit- I don't know what he did, but he hit my stomach pretty hard and sent me flying. I fell unconscious mid air." Naruto muttered the last part.

"Yeah, but you pinned his tongue to his arm with your kunai." Sakura muttered, finally looking more focused. "I caught Naruto but it knocked me over."

"I lost focus when I saw them both go down." Sasuke admitted, almost grudgingly. "I . . .I had a flashback . . ." He shuddered, and one hand went to his shoulder. "He got behind me and bit me, straight through the fabric of my shirt . . . then I lost consciousness."

"I was dazed from Naruto hitting me, and I really thought we were going to die there." Sakura took a deep breath. "But the nin picked up Sasuke and tossed him at me . . . he said that he wanted us alive, and that the bite was gift for Sasuke to reach his goals."

"What happened after he left?" Ibiki stepped forward.

"Naruto and Sasuke were unconscious- both had slight fevers as well. I got them into the shelter of some roots and went on guard . . . I had to take a soldier pill to stay awake since I was exhausted." Sakura bit her lip, then glanced at Iruka. "Iruka-sensei, I'm sorry." Before Iruka could ask why, she turned back to her story, but Kakashi glanced at Iruka who looked confused, and a little sad. That more than what she said next made him tighten his grip on her shoulder. "I summoned a dog, Bull, to help guard, and I thought I was doing alright, when the team from sound found us. They were still angry, and they recognized me from the previous exam- apparently my words and actions ticked them off." She closed her eyes and took a breath. "Well, I'd set up a camouflage genjutsu over Naruto and Sasuke's hiding spot, so when they attacked my chakra started to run out. Bull stuck around, I think he used his own chakra to help stay . . . well, I managed to take the girl out fairly early on. But to the fight the boys I needed more chakra so I took another soldier pill." Kakashi wanted to flinch. That wasn't good- Sakura was a growing girl and too many soldier pills could damage her chakra coils and her body's natural ability. "The boy with bandages, I think he was called Dosu, he ignored me in favor of trying to find Sasuke and Naruto so he could kill them. The boy with-out bandages- I don't know his name, he got behind me and grabbed my braid. I got desperate and cut my hair," at this point she reached up to touch the now short hair, "Bull took out the boy that did it, and I went after Dosu to distract him- but my chakra had depleted again, so I took another pill to keep going . . ."

Two pills in a short time-span, three if you had counted the first one, though there was no telling how many hours had passed between her taking it and the other two. Kakashi sat on the bench next to her and gave her a one armed hug. Sasuke had moved closer, but Iruka was standing behind Naruto with both hands on the smaller boy's shoulders.

"Dosu blasted me into the tree- and that's when Sasuke woke up. It was frightening- he had dark marks covering half his face and the whites of his eyes had turned black. He set Dosu on fire- I think he died. When Sasuke looked at me, I thought he was going to attack me too, but it was like he woke up a moment later. We grabbed Naruto and got out of there." Sakura closed her eyes. "I was still on a high from the pill, but we wound up running into one of the waterfall teams. We fought- Naruto finally woke up, but . . . well, I collapsed in the middle of the fight- or so I thought."

"So you thought?" Ibiki frowned.

"Inner Sakura." Sasuke took over. "Sakura has an inner personality that's more impulsive and violent. It's not a split personality, as they agree on everything and Inner Sakura usually stays in her head. But a month ago, Ino Yamaka used her family's technique and accidentally switched the two personalities. Kurenai-sensei and Inochi-san said that there was now the possibility of Inner Sakura splitting and becoming its own entity."

"From our point of view, Sakura stumbled, but didn't lose consciousness." Naruto spoke up again. "She turned to taijutsu and bare-hand fighting, taking out one of the waterfall nins. We didn't realize something was wrong until they were down and Sakura said 'That's what you get for messing with us, Shannaro!'."

"Shannaro is Inner Sakura's favorite phrase, Sakura never uses it." Sasuke explained softly. Ibiki nodded, now understanding what Kakashi and Kurenai had been talking about when he mentioned Sakura's mood swing. Inner Sakura had been a personality that Sakura suppressed to conform to what her mother wanted- a lady. Inner Sakura was a tom-boy, apparently, with no problem getting dirty.

"I see, so then-?"

"Then we had to make camp- Inner Sakura had lain down, and we were surprised when Sakura sat right back up and asked what had happened. After that rest, we made it here." Naruto finished.

Ibiki nodded, while Anko moved to crouch in front of Sasuke (who had decided to sit while Sakura finished explaining what had happened). "Alright if I see your shoulder, Uchiha-gaki?"

"Yeah." Anko gently pulled back the shirt to see the mark left by her former sensei. With a soft curse, she confirmed Jiraiya and the Hokage's suspicion.

"It's a cursed seal alright. That damn bastard." Anko pulled back.

"Cursed seal? Like mine?" Naruto pointed at his stomach.

"No, this is . . . well, I think I should explain from the beginning. Forewarned is forearmed." The Hokage sat down in an armchair. "The nin that attacked you wasn't a grass nin- in fact, that entire team was found outside the gates of Kohona near the exam site. That nin was Orochimaru, one of the legendary Sannin who I taught when I was a jounin instructor." The trio blinked in surprise, apparently the idea of the Hokage ever being a jounin (or a gennin for that matter) wasn't one that had crossed their minds before. "Jiraiya here was also on that team, but I digress. When he became a jounin, Orochimaru became obsessed with the idea of immortality and began to experiment on ways to prolong his existence. At first, his research was harmless, just an idle fancy that I'm sure anyone would look up- living forever would be an amazing adventure for the young- but it soon began to become dark- he started to try his experiments on prisoners and then on his own allies. He had a gennin team at one point, and placed his first curse seal on them. Two of the gennin died, the third was barely able to crawl back to Kohona to tell me what had happened. There was a confrontation, but Orochimaru escaped." The hokage sighed. "I suppose it was my fault in a way, I hesitated in giving the order to kill him, he had been my student . . ."

"Orochimaru fled and we know he kept up his experiments- I've been tracking my former teammate all these years." Jiraiya explained. "From what I've gathered, he's been able to successfully prolong his life, how I don't know exactly, but it involves using the curse seals. I came to Kohona not only to check on the Kyuubi's seal, but also because there have been indications that Orochimaru is planning something while the Chunin exams are going on. I admit I didn't see him attacking gennin, though." Jiraiya added, looking at the trio.

"You know Kyuubi's seal?" Sakura asked, curious.

"Yes."

"Then can you fix what Orochimaru did to it? Naruto can't focus his chakra anymore and almost drowned when we were crossing a river- he couldn't water walk!" Sasuke nodded with Sakura's statement, looking hopeful.

"Guys, I can wait, you might want to ask what the heck the curse seal is." Naruto interrupted, shooting them an annoyed look. Sasuke returned to holding his shoulder at the reminder.

"From what I understand, the cursed seal takes chakra from Orochimaru and another source and creates extra chakra the recipient can use- similar to how the bijou are an extra source of chakra for the jinchurriki. However the chakra is dark and seems to bring out more aggression in the victim when used- one of the victims I saw killed ten men with his bare hands before they reined him in." Jiraiya explained.

" . . . We are one messed up team." Sasuke muttered.

"What do you mean?"

"Naruto's got a giant killer fuzzball he shares a body with, Sakura has a violent alternate personality, and now I've got the chance for the same thing, so much for me being the normal one on the team." Sasuke pointed out. Naruto snorted and Sakura gave a weak smile.

"Your humor needs work." Naruto rolled his eyes. "Alright, so Sasuke now has an extra source of power from a crazed ninja. Is there any way to remove it?"

"I'm afraid not- Orochimaru was able to take his chakra out of the seal, but the result wasn't pretty . . . the other source ended up giving the victim chakra poisoning and killing him without Orochimaru's chakra to stabilize it. But none of his notes that I found indicated any sort of removal." Jiraiya sighed. "It is possible to suppress it though."

"Yeah, and then when the repressing seal gets removed for some reason I'll end up losing control and killing someone else." Sasuke muttered.

"Yeah, I tried that, it doesn't work," Anko nodded, "made my chakra feel wrong."

"Now about Naruto, what did Orochimaru do to him? Naruto was surrounded by Kyuubi's chakra and when he slammed his hand into Naruto's stomach it vanished!" Sakura shifted to look at Jiraiya.

"Alright, alright." Jiraiya chuckled. Sasuke was relieved when the attention turned to Naruto's seal.

'_At least they can fix him . . .'_ Sasuke had been shocked when Naruto- who had enjoyed water-walking immensely and managed it in fewer tries than himself- had sunk like a rock when they tried to cross the river. Jutsus that Naruto had been able to do with ease had become difficult, though he could still do Kage Bushin.

"Take of your shirt and jacket so I can see the seal." Naruto did so, and Sasuke made a face at the large bruise covering Naruto's ribs. That should have healed, he knew. "Alright, now summon your chakra as if you were going to water-walk." Naruto obeyed again, and both Sakura and Sasuke were interested to see the shape of the seal. "Alright, I can fix that, hold your hands above your head and close your eyes." Naruto obeyed, and in one fluid motion, Jiraiya had slammed his hand into Naruto's stomach, knocking him heels-over-head backwards. Kakashi and Anko grabbed Sasuke and Sakura who had jumped p automatically, ready to attack in defense of Naruto. (Both too clearly remembered how Naruto had gone flying the last time and his unconsciousness.)

"Ow, what the hell!" Naruto sat up. "You couldn't have warned me?"

"You would have tensed, better if you're relaxed." Jiraiya retorted. "That better?" Naruto responded by walking up the wall.

"Yeah, I'm so shaky anymore." He hopped down. "Stomach still hurts, though. How come I didn't get knocked out again?"

"The seal Orochimaru used had five points while the seal the Yondaime used had four. The yondaime's seal bled a little of Kyuubi's chakra into yours- which is actually quite a lot for a human being- but Orochimaru's seal messed that up. Instead of a slow and steady rate, it mixed the chakras too rapidly, making it difficult for you to control your own chakra as you don't seem to be able to control Kyuubi's yet. Also, you were using Kyuubi's chakra when Orochimaru placed his seal, and that chakra went suddenly from Kyuubi to mix with your own. The shock of that sudden mix made your body shut down in order to deal with the fox's chakra." Jiraiya explained. Sakura nodded, following Jiraiya's explanation. "Get it?"

"No, the room spun for a moment, what did you say Ero-sennin?" Naruto smiled. Anko burst out laughing and Ibiki repressed a smirk as Iruka sighed, mumbling about respect. Jiraiya was stopped from making a comment by Sakura speaking up.

"I'll explain it to you later, Naruto." Sakura sat back, and Kakashi now understood why Sakura was trembling. It wasn't because she had been traumatized, it was because her body was trying to burn off the effects of the soldier pills.

"Are you alright?" Kakashi studied her.

"Yeah, it's kind of funny, Inner Sakura isn't as loud as she used to be. You'd have thought an alternate personality would stay vocal when it split off. Unless she's sleeping . . ." Sakura's matter of fact answer made his lips twitch.

"Well, the third exam will start in two hours, do you three wish to continue?" Anko brought them back on track.

" . . ." Sakura and Sasuke shared a glance, then looked at Naruto who was pulling on his jacket. He looked at them and shrugged.

"I meant what I said, I don't care how many times I have to retake the exam, it's not going to stop me from wanting to be a ninja. If you guys don't want to continue, we won't."

"But you're not as bad off as us." Sasuke spoke up. "Your problem was easier to fix- and my chakra control needs work before I can do anything." He pulled his hand away from his shoulder with effort. It was sore, and now that he could sit down and think about what had happened, he could feel a second type of chakra mixed with his own. It felt dirty somehow, and like his balance had been messed up.

"Besides, we don't want to hold you back . . ." A year ago, the thought of her and Sasuke holding back Naruto would have been laughable- if someone had said that to her then she would have corrected them that Naruto would hold her and Sasuke back.

"You wouldn't." The Hokage interrupted. "The next part of the exam, now that we've seen your intelligence gathering, nerve and teamwork, is how well you do in a one on one scenario. You can choose to participate or watch."

"Then I'm going to have to watch." Sakura glanced at her shaking hands. She couldn't stop them from shaking. "You should participate and represent team seven, Naruto-kun!"

"You think so?" Naruto blinked, despite their new-found closeness, he still wasn't used to them backing him up in anything.

"Yeah, it would definitely be 'cool' to see the dead last of the academy to become chunin before anyone else. Though if you lose I'm going to beat you up, I know where you sleep, after all." Sasuke smirked. Inside, he wished he could go with Naruto and participate but a part of him- that sounded like a mix of Sakura and his mother- told him that he needed to rest and not get into a fight with the curse seal still new, he didn't know how it worked yet. "We'll be cheering you on, unless we get dragged to the hospital."

"I won't let you guys down then, Dattebayo!"

"I'll say, if you go against Neji you better remember to watch his strikes!"

"Hey, that was one time! One!"

"You only sparred with him once."

Unnoticed, Ibiki just shook his head. This happened on missions as well. Sometimes members of the team would be hurt and unable to continue, and the team would split, the injured going to find medical help, while those still able continued to finish the mission (or die). Naruto was in this case the able-bodied nin capable of continuing the mission, while Sakura and Sasuke had to go lick their wounds and recover. Judging by Anko's expression, she was thinking the same thing.

The Hokage gave a small smile, happy to see Naruto supported by more than just one person. While teaching the now rookie teams and Gai's, he had noticed that Naruto could get anyone on his side- even Hyuuga Neji had grudgingly followed Naruto's lead in a ninja-version of capture the flag. Kakashi being captured and transformed had done more than just help them all deal with their issues that prevented them becoming a team, it had also built a sense of community with other gennin around their age.

Kakashi glanced at Iruka who had a mixture of pride and worry on his face as he watched Naruto. Kakashi would have to talk to the chunin sooner or later about Naruto and his performance in the classroom- a talk he should have had months ago when he got assigned the three gennin. The two had never actually spoken with each other outside of business and 'hello' and 'goodbye'. Though he felt a certain kinship with the chunin, because the emotions on his face were exactly the same ones the jounin was feeling for his entire team.

Though the thought that if Naruto managed to become chunin, he'd at least have Sakura and Sasuke still with him made him alternatively happy and embarrassed- what sort of jounin was he, happy to keep his gennin team under his wing like a mother hen?

_A damn good one, Kashi-kun._ A voice that sounding like his sensei teasing him whispered.

**Woof! That took a while to write because I had to go back and look over the manga chapters, and then I had to find a point of view I hadn't really done before. **

**Next up, the third part of the exam, and Sakura and Sasuke won't be participating- but who else didn't do so well in the Forest of Death? Find out next time in Tomorrow Chapter Six: Fight for Tomorrow!**

**Yeah, okay, that sounded goofy. Just a heads up, I won't go into too much detail about the fights from the fighters point of view, it'll mainly be the observers. Mostly because I'm lazy and don't want to write out a bunch of fight scenes in detail.**


	6. Fight for Tomorrow

**Fight for Tomorrow**

After Team seven had given their report, Iruka took them back to their room to wait for the next part of the exam. (Ibiki had to put a hand on Kakashi's shoulder to keep the jounin from following.) As he came down the stairs, he noticed the inscription. "Ah, I nearly forgot! Sakura, could you read that out loud for us?"

"Those who have earth seek heaven, and those who have heaven seek earth." Sakura frowned. "Is that talking about the scrolls we had to get?"

"In a way. In this case, heaven means wisdom and intellectual ability, while earth means physical strength and ability. Many people prefer to only use one, but a ninja requires both to survive. A ninja must be aware of both the earth and heaven so they can use their abilities to the fullest." Iruka glanced at Sakura who nodded, following. Sasuke was studying the inscription, and Naruto was- staring at the ceiling. "Naruto, do you understand?"

"Sort of. If I need to understand something technical, I ask Sakura, if I want a sparring partner, I ask Sasuke." Iruka blinked. Well, that was another way to put it. "And together, there's nothing we can't do." Sakura gave a shaky smile as Sasuke smirked and nodded. Entering the room, Naruto pulled Sakura to a chair and made her sit. Sasuke leaned against the wall. "So, how have you been, Iruka-sensei?"

"Busy, I haven't seen you around much, been keeping out of trouble?"

"More like busy chasing that damn cat." Naruto muttered. "I swear the Hokage sets that job aside just for us." Iruka chuckled.

"Well, a hokage does have to have humility- and I'm sure that mission is humbling."

"You have no idea, my mother freaked out when she saw the scratches- apparently civilian kids have started using kunai to cut their own arms to relieve stress or something, and she thought I needed to see a shrink." Sakura rolled her eyes. The door swung open and they all jumped as Team Ten, led by Ino, entered.

"There you are, I was looking for- what happened to your hair?" Ino stared in shock at Sakura.

"It got caught and I had to cut it- my life was a bit more important."

"Only a bit?" Sasuke snorted.

"How'd you guys do?"

"Alright, we were able to ambush a team and get their scroll early on, it was getting to the tower that was difficult. Did you hear?"

"Hear what?"

"That Suna team got here on the first day! And the mist team was right behind them arriving the next morning!"

"Really?" Sakura blinked. Iruka gave a soft cough.

"Oh, Iruka-sensei- wait, did you guys just get here, no wonder you look wrung out!" Shikamaru muttered under his breath as he went to sit by Naruto, Chouji in tow.

"No, we just opened the scrolls, we've been here a while. Do you know how team eight did?"

"Yeah." Inexplicably, all three of Team Ten's faces darkened. It was Shikamaru who spoke up.

"They ran into Team Gai. Despite having the same scroll, Neji still attacked them. Kiba and Shino are fine, but Hinata had to be taken to the hospital." Shikamaru looked a bit more awake than normal. "Neji's lucky fighting is part of the exam, so the Hyuuga head won't activate the caged bird seal."

"Another seal that means bad news." Naruto muttered to Sasuke, who nodded. Team Seven had been slightly sickened at the practices of the Hyuuga clan when they found out, Neji had grown angry at Naruto for commenting on his being a prodigy meant nothing compared to those that worked hard (they had been arguing for a while, and the sensei's hadn't stepped in to stop it from escalating, they had been busy making sure Chouji didn't flatten the others while he trained using his family justu) and had let it slip about the caged bird seal. Naruto had been struck silent, not by pity like Neji had assumed, but by the similarity. ("I'm a scapegoat like the branch- I got sealed so no one else had to die. Unfortunately, I think I'm the scapegoat for the entire town instead of one person." Naruto had mentioned later that day.) Unfortunately, they couldn't understand why Neji hated Hinata so much, as she was kind and would probably remove the seals if ("When!" Naruto insisted) she became the head of the clan.

To a certain extent, the seals made sense to Sasuke- they blocked the bearer's bloodline and could destroy the body so no one could steal the bloodline's secrets. A Hyuuga going on a suicide mission should have one- but what didn't make sense was an entire half of a family being marked from birth as 'Kamikaze' material!

"So team Gai made it?"

"Tenten didn't. She got poisoned by a grass nin using darts. She'll make a full recovery though. I've heard that something happened to Lee, though, but no one seems able to tell me what happened."

"I hope he's alright." Sakura muttered.

"Yosh! The most beautiful blossom of Kohona cares!" They all jumped as Lee entered the room- he had a black eye. "I am perfectly fine, only suffering bruises from getting in a taijutsu match against that powerful fighter from the Bear hidden Village!"

"Looks like he got a few hits, who won?" Lee's beaming smile nearly blinded them, making Naruto regret the question.

"He was an excellent Taijutsu rival, and I shall not forget that fight!"

"Well, I'm glad to hear you all have done well. I better go to make my report- a chunin will come to guide you to the next exam in about an hour, so use the time to rest up." Despite having already decided not to continue, Sakura and Sasuke had asked to stick with Naruto for moral support, before going to the hospital. Iruka smiled as he left, Ino offering to even up Sakura's hair before the next exam.

He passed Rin from mist, who was studying the inscription. The two exchanged nods, before he continued on his way.

* * *

Iruka had sat down on a couch that had seen better days- Anko really need to refurnish the break room in the tower- and gave a slight jolt as he realized Kakashi had followed him.

"You should be more aware of your surroundings." Kakashi sat across from him in a chair.

"Shouldn't you have left by now?"

"There were a couple other teams that came across Orochimaru, The Hokage decided to stick around . . . and I wanted to talk to you."

"What about?" Iruka became wary. It was rare for Jounin and Chunin to talk or be friends unless they had been gennin together. Sometimes it was innocent- a file the jounin needed, so they sent the chunin and then made small talk about being a ninja, other times it wasn't- the new chunin that were just promoted tended to get hazed by the jounin. Why it wasn't the older Chunin who did it, Iruka didn't know. And sometimes the jounin would prank the older chunin for the heck of it.

"Team Seven. I was supposed to come to you when I received their files to discuss their school records and I never did." Iruka raised an eyebrow. "I know it's a little- okay a lot- late, but there's no guarantee that Naruto will pass, and I would like to know a bit more about them like I'm supposed to."

"Sasuke, he was quiet and studious in class, tended to be a loner, especially after the deaths of his family. Before he had just been a bit shy, but afterwards he turned cold. Sakura only had Ino for a friend, all the other girls had been teasing her since she was little about her looks and so she retreated to books and studying. I once heard her say that since she's such a weak kunochi she would compensate by being smart. Grant it, it was to Ino and they were still competing for Sasuke's attention, but she's always lacked confidence in her skills. Naruto . . . He got put into the academy three years earlier than the rest of his peers. The Hokage needed the Anbu for other missions and the academy was perhaps the safest place during the day. He was too young to perform well, but they let him progress to taking the exam. At best, I hope they thought his raw talent would be better on the field . . . but at worst, they just wanted a reason to make fun of him. I came in when his yearmates started, and Naruto was always being shuffled around so that the other students could have the teacher's focus. He'd work with my class, even though he was supposed to be in another." Iruka gave a soft sigh. "I never thought much of it, until he failed the exam the first time. After that, I tried to help, but even though he worked with me he was never able to compete with the older kids. He never stopped trying though, and watching him fail repeatedly only to get mocked by not only the students but some of the teachers as well . . . well, I'm glad he turned out the way he did."

"Yeah- what's the most important thing to look for to tell if their stressed?"

"Sakura will quote lessons and rules at you, Sasuke will twitch at sudden noises, and Naruto . . . Naruto will go quiet and run away at the first opportunity." Iruka rubbed his eyes. "And since you're not used to Naruto being quiet, you overlook him even when he wears that bright orange jumpsuit. He's very good at hiding. Sasuke won't admit he needs a break even when tired, and Sakura hides behind rules- or at least, that's what they used to do. You've done a good job in teaching them."

"I'd like to think I'm building off of what you've done." Kakashi responded politely. Iruka just gave a short nod and looked at the clock. "How was Naruto's performance in your classroom?"

"Sporadic. He couldn't do henge, but he created that Sexy no Jutsu, he can't form a decent bushin, but kage bushin takes no effort. I ask a question orally and he understands it, but if it's written down, he has to ask for me to explain. He's not illiterate either, he can read and write, though it takes him longer than others." Iruka scowled. "Some days are better than others, and I'm starting to wonder if the days he had trouble were because he wasn't able to bleed off the excess chakra."

"You'd be right about that. I have them do Chakra control exercises everyday- Naruto tends to create clones to help with using the chakra." The two men continued to talk for a while longer, and then they both went to the arena to see the genin compete.

"Alright, these matches will be one-on-one and will go until one of you can no longer fight. There will be no killing. Those that make it through today's match will then fight again so that all the villages can see how strong our future is." The jounin studied them all. "If you feel unable to fight, leave now."

Kabuto was about to leave when he noticed both Sakura and Sasuke whisper to Naruto and then both of them left. He continued on as if he hadn't noticed, but he wondered if the curse seal hadn't taken to Sasuke as well as his master hoped.

Sakura sat down on a bench. She wouldn't be able to see much, but she'd really started to shake again. Sasuke stood next to her. "It's weird."

"What is?" She looked up at his soft-spoken statement.

"We're going to be watching Naruto beat us- and I'm not upset by that thought." Sakura gave a weak smile.

"Yeah, it's definitely strange." Sakura bit her lip. "Sasuke?"

"Hn?" He looked over at her.

"I think I should go to the hospital, I don't feel right."

"Then why-"

"I didn't want Naruto to think I was going to abandon him! And I thought I was fine . . ."

"Then get going." Sakura blinked, Naruto had joined them. "The first match just started, it's Chouji versus that guy from mist."

"Are you sure?"

"Sakura, you're sick, you need a hospital, don't argue. Your health is a bit more important than me."

"Just a bit?" Sakura gave a weak attempt at humor, earning an eye-roll from Sasuke and a small huff from Naruto, though their eyes gave them away.

"I'll take her." Kakashi picked her up. "Umino, you mind looking after these two for me?"

"Not at all Hatake." Iruka gave a small nod. Kakashi then set off to the hospital.

"Sorry, Sensei." Sakura curled up. "I didn't mean to cause you trouble."

"You didn't, as your jounin instructor part of my job is making sure you stay healthy." It wasn't a long distance, and the med nin that came over looked more than a little annoyed. "She took multiple soldier pills in a short time. She's coming down off the high."

"Name?"

"Haruno, Sakura Haruno. She's a genin that was in the exams." Kakashi put Sakura down on the gurney that an orderly brought over. Sakura, however, refused to let go of his wrist afterwards. "I'm her Jounin instructor."

"Right, do you want to stay with her? We just have to test her blood for what the levels are."

"If she wants me to." Sakura nodded and tightened her grip on his wrist. "Then let's go."

* * *

"Ouch, that had to hurt." Naruto winced in sympathy as the blonde mist gennin got hit by Kiba and Akamaru. Sasuke nodded.

"Damnit." Rin muttered as she watched her other teammate's fight end in another double-knockout.

"Language." Her jounin instructor chided. He didn't see her roll her eyes. "Morino-san mentioned you attacked one of the sound gennin, in the first exam. Care to say why?"

" . . ." For a moment, it looked like she wasn't going to answer, instead turning to the board where the female sound genin and Gaara of the sand's names flashed onto the board. "I figured I might as well start making a name for myself."

In an unnoticed corner, the sound jounin watched in stony silence as Kin was crushed by the sand- hard enough to break bone, but not enough to kill her. His eyes slid over to where the Uchiha and the Kyuubi container were talking softly, before returning them to the board as Zaku's name flashed across of Hyuuga Neji. He kept his face expressionless as he went to check on the girl, but was internally smiling as he passed Morino Ibiki. Things might not have been going perfectly to plan, but they were still going in the right direction.

* * *

"Sakura, do you need me to send for your mother?" Kakashi looked down at his student, who was now curled up in a hospital bed waiting for the technicians to finish all the diagnostics. Sakura bit her lower lip for a moment.

"N-no, she'll make everything a lot worse." Sakura didn't know how Inner Sakura would react around her mother- before they had split, Inner Sakura had mostly been all talk, (angry, loud, and sarcastic) and had more than once had a tirade directed against her mother. With Inner Sakura now able to be more than just a voice, she didn't want to risk it.

"If you're sure, but she's going to have to be notified at some point." He reminded her, frowning as she just closed her eyes. "Sakura . . ."

"I know, sensei, but Inner Sakura doesn't like her that much." As soon as the words left her, Sakura realized she had opened up a new can of worms.

"Kurenai and Inochi-san would both be willing to help with that." Sakura curled into a smaller ball, before looking up at her sensei.

"But I need her. If I had collapsed in the forest, things would have been worse. I know it'll put strain on my body, I read a bunch of books on it after talking with Kurenai-sensei, but I can't . . . I want to keep Inner Sakura." Sakura wished she wasn't shaking, it was a lot easier to make a point when her body wasn't giving her trouble. "Inner Sakura is still me, Sensei, we're still the same person- she's just a heck of a lot more violent and angry than me."

"Does your mother know?" He already knew the answer, even as he asked.

"No, she'd be finding a way to stop me, she hates that I chose to take after dad. She was hoping I'd give up once I became genin and saw how much work it was." Sakura admitted. "I don't tell her everything that I get up to."

"We'll work on that later, then." Kakashi ruffled her now-short hair. She swatted his hand away, making him chuckle. "I think you've hung out with Tora too long, you're starting to act like a cat."

"Don't even joke about that!" Sakura groaned. "Demon cat, where do people get off hating Naruto when there are real demons in small furry bodies hanging around?"

* * *

Sasuke watched in silence as Naruto took out the girl with the fan (Temari, he was going to have to remember her name). She wasn't good at close combat, and Naruto had used a lot of clones to keep her from using her fan again. He smirked as Naruto was declared winner, ignoring the twinge in his shoulder. Kiba was loudly cheering as was Lee, and Sasuke noticed that Iruka was beaming. In a moment Naruto was back in the viewing deck, grinning.

"Nice job, Dobe." Sasuke held out a fist, which Naruto bumped with his own.

"Thanks Teme, any news on Sakura?" Sasuke shook his head.

"I wouldn't worry too much, it takes a while to run blood tests." Iruka assured them. "So far, it looks like it's Naruto, Gaara of the Sand, Hyuuga Neji are going to the finals-"

"So is Shikamaru." Sasuke noted as the Nara heir defeated his opponent in quick time using his family's jutsu. He looked up at the board. "Lee's next, he's up against Ino!"

"Ino will lose." Shikamaru muttered as he joined them, startling them.

"That's not a positive thing to say!" Naruto frowned.

"Ino's no good at Taijutsu, Lee will wipe the floor with her- and to use her family's ability, Lee has to stay still." Shikamaru pointed out. Naruto winced and glanced back at the match to see Lee punching Ino with a loud apology and knocking her out.

The mist genin Rin jumped into the ring against one of Kabuto's teammates. Sasuke tilted his head, activating his sharigan to watch. Sakura might not have been interested in having a rival, but that didn't mean he wouldn't tell her about this match. Naruto, meanwhile was going through the list of who was left.

"- so the last fight is going to be Shino against that other sand nin, right?" He was answered by Sasuke giving a shocked exclamation. "Teme?" He followed his line of sight only to have his own jaw drop. Rin had trapped her opponent in a water prison, but unlike the one Zabuza had used on Kakashi, this one was filled with water- and the leaf genin was unable to break out, even though he was giving a good try.

"She's going to kill him if she keeps him there for any longer!" Kiba shouted, shocked. Inside the prison, the leaf genin went limp. Rin held it for another moment, before letting the water go. Rin won that match.

The mist Jounin closed his eyes and gave a soft sigh as Rin rejoined them. The match between Shino and Kankurro (according to the sign, that was his name) was longer, with Shino knocking out his opponent despite being poisoned, though his collapse right after disqualified him from continuing on.

"If our finalists could come back down to the floor?" Rin and Gaara almost landed next to each other, both glancing warily before focusing. Lee, Naruto and Shikamaru stood together, with Neji just a few feet away with a scowl. "In one month, we will continue this tournament. Your opponents will be listed in a moment. Those who lose their upcoming match will return to being a genin, those that win will be made chunin." The examiner studied them all. "Use this month to train and rest up, and keep in mind that there are many ways to win a fight, but only one way to lose." They nodded, and the examiner signaled for the names to be shown.

**Tanaka Rin Vs. Rock Lee**

**Nara Shikamaru Vs. Hyuuga Neji**

**Suna no Gaara Vs. Uzumaki Naruto**

"You will go in the order listed. Good luck." With that, the first part of the exam concluded- now all that remained were the reactions.

* * *

**Next up: Reactions to Tomorrow- How does everyone react to the finalists? Training starts, but who will train who?**

**If anyone spots a misspelled name, please tell me, spell check is no help on Japanese names. (Sasuke = Sauce, Assume, Saluki, Suzuki, Saucer, etc.)**


	7. Reactions to Tomorrow

**Just a quick note- I'm not going to be focusing on pairings in this fic, it's not a romance, so pretty much the only pairings you'll see are the ones confirmed in canon (ie a certain couple that got married in secret). Since this isn't going to be a cannon based story (Though, as stated before, I will keep key events, just change them to fit the story) it will be a character based story, primarily focusing on team 7, but with other characters commenting on events as well. Now, I don't own Naruto. **

**Reactions to Tomorrow**

Shikamaru sighed as he followed Chouji and his Sensei to check on Ino. He might not like Neji, but the Hyuuga was a better fighter, and a month probably wouldn't make much difference to that gap. "What a pain . . ." He muttered. Though compared to Naruto and Lee, he probably got the easiest opponent.

The mist gennin Rin had been holding back in her fight, she could have created the water prison right off the bat and taken out her opponent. Instead, she had played around. Tossing Shuriken and dodging strikes before creating it, and even then she had waited until after her opponent had been motionless for several moments before letting go. Like a cat that lost interest when the mouse it had been playing with finally died. Lee could hit hard and fast, but if the mist gennin had been playing around, then there was no telling what she would be able to do.

The sand gennin, Gaara, on the other hand, had gone straight for the kill, the sound girl had been unable to do anything before the sand crushed her. He'd been grinning, clearly enjoying her pain. Naruto was unpredictable at best, so there was always a chance that he'd get past the sand . . . but once it got him, that would be the end.

"Are you listening to me?" With a soft sigh, he reluctantly turned his attention to Ino's comments.

* * *

Kakashi listened to the mednin as she spoke, glancing at his team as Naruto and Sasuke filled in Sakura on what she had missed.

"The damage is nothing that won't heal with time, but . . . it will take a long time for her control to come back." The med nin finished, and Kakashi sighed. "She's lucky it wasn't worse. We're going have to talk with her mother to explain, of course-"

"Five hours."

"Huh?"

"Send someone five hours from now to talk to Haruno-san, Sakura will need the time." To get Inner Sakura calmed down and Sakura to focus on moving forward. "Understand?"

"Wh- of course." The med nin nodded and left, making a note of it on the chart. Kakashi sighed again, then went in to tell the trio about the bad news.

* * *

Temari was scowling. She was not happy that she had lost to Naruto, and Kankuro was not helping matters. Braining him with her fan, she found herself with only Gaara for company. Uneasy- _because he was capable of killing anyone with the slightest whim_- and yet feeling the need- _because he was still her little brother, and as scared of him as she was she was never going to abandon him, ever_- she went to stand next to him. "What do you think of your opponent, Gaara?" Gaara glanced at her and Temari briefly wondered if she had approached him at the wrong time. "You were pretty keen on fighting him before the exams, right?"

"He's strong, he beat you." It was a simple statement. "I'm curious, but I don't think he'll be a problem." The sand rattled in the gourd.

"Don't underestimate him, Gaara, a lot of nins get killed that way- like those sound genin." Temari was a good listener, and she had heard the two remaining sound genin talk about their now dead comrade. Gaara turned his head to fully look at her, and Temari realized that she actually had his full attention. "Despite both guys having been badly injured and the girl rapidly losing chakra, that Uzumaki's team killed one and sent the other running. He beat me even though he was still recovering from the forest, Gaara, can you imagine what he could have done at full strength?" Gaara's eyes had a small spark of interest as he nodded, and returned to staring out the window. "Gaara, why are you curious about him?" Gaara just shrugged and walked away, a small glare sent her way ending the conversation as he went to sit in a quieter room. Temari let out a soft sigh, he was her brother, it shouldn't have been frightening to talk to him, and for one moment, things had gone back to the way they had been before her father tried to kill her brother.

Gaara sat on a chair, so he could continue staring out the window. He'd wandered off from his siblings, the day the two teams had met, and had watched the three chase some smaller kids down the road towards his siblings. What had caught his interest had been the disdain he had seen in the eyes of the villagers as the gennin raced past, and the whispers of 'monster' that had followed. It was obvious that they had been talking about one of the boys, and Gaara was curious to know which one. He knew there were others like him- his father's file on the nine biju hadn't been put away properly and he had seen his own picture sticking out of the file- but he didn't know their names or where they were. His black rimmed eyes dulled. Somewhere deep inside, he wanted to just talk with them, but it was buried deep under years of neglect and mistrust and twisted to where his only way to act on the strange emotion was to hurt and kill and make others miserable because even though he tried they'd still rather hurt him.

* * *

The mist jounin was frowning at Rin, who either knew he was annoyed, or was actually lost in her book, it was hard to tell sometimes. He was proud of her, but sometimes it felt like he was dealing with a explosive Kunai that was improperly sealed- he never knew what would make her snap. "What do you think of your opponent?" Rin blinked, and glanced up.

"Huh?"

"What do you think of your opponent?" She blinked again, before reluctantly putting the book down.

"He seems to focus on taijutsu a lot. I think I can match his speed though." She rubbed her eyes. "he lacks stealth, despite being pretty graceful." She shrugged. "I don't think that match was a fair one, as it ended too quick for me to see how he would do in a long-time fight- that girl was clearly weaker than him."

"Rin, you've always hid behind the others, why are you stepping out of your shell now?"

"I told you, I'm going to start making a name for myself." She smiled, thought the jounin could tell it was insincere. "Pity that other girl didn't make it, though, she would have been fun." With that the conversation was dropped, and the jounin sighed.

'_I swear, she gets more like her mother everyday- she never gave a straight answer either.'_

* * *

"So, the brat made it to the finals." The Third remained silent as Jiraiya looked over the files. "He needs to learn how to control that foreign chakra." Jiraiya leaned back, reminding the Third of the teenager (and nightmare) he had been. "Nara and Hyuuga aren't surprising, they're both smart and strong enough to make each hit count. Rock Lee, on the other hand, is Taijutsu only, he'll have trouble against the mist girl- all mist, especially gennin, are trained to kill, not incapacitate unless they need information." Jiraiya tapped the stack of folders. "She's a good example of the result that civil war had on Mist."

"And the Kazekage's son?" Jiraiya looked confused, and the Third frowned. "Don't play me for a fool, Jiraiya, I know you've gotten information on the other Jinchurriki." Ironically, it was thanks to Orochimaru that Jiraiya even knew about Akatsuki and their mission of capturing Jinchurriki. Not that it would stop Jiraiya from landing the killing blow if they ever crossed paths again.

"It's funny, as hated and despised as some jinchurriki are inside their village, not a single ninja will give up their whereabouts or their names- there are a couple that are even well liked, I've heard." Sandaime frowned, and Jiraiya sighed. "Like I said, I know roughly which village had which of them, but that doesn't mean I know their capabilities." Jiraiya studied the stack of files, as if they would spontaneously start talking. "Kazekage's son . . . they all say he's an insane cold blooded monster."

"You doubt that?"

"You know how rumors spread, and how hard it is to find those who actually will tell the truth, not the gossip." Jiraiya drank some of the tea, grimacing at the discovery it had gone cold. "His mother died giving birth to him, just after naming him. More extreme rumors would have you believe that he ripped his way out of the womb and tore her apart." Jiraiya sighed. "Something happened when he was about eight, that furthered unhinged him- but that's one of those stories that everyone knows and no one will ever talk about it."

"We've heard what he did to the waterfall team and we know what he did to the sound gennin." Jiraiya gave a small nod.

"Yes, but like I said before, there's no way to know for sure if the kid is a jinchurriki or some other weapon- any kid raised hated will lash out in some way, Kohona's lucky, the brat chose to lash out with pranks and not kunai."

"Are you going to train him, then?"

" . . . I'll see what Kakashi does, first. He knows it as well, so . . ." Jiraiya trailed off, thinking. "If he makes chunin, he'll be my apprentice. Kakashi's acting a little . . . protective of those three."

"I've heard." This time it was Jiraiya's turn to shoot a sharp look at the hokage. "It's good for him, it'll get him out of his apathy." The hokage said nothing more, but simply straightened a pile of paperwork. "I've been thinking about retiring, again." This made Jiraiya sit up. "If you or Tsunade won't take the job," he ignored Jiraiya's snort of derision, "then Kakashi might do- once all three are chunin."

"What makes you think that?"

"He's not going to accept until all three are technically out from under his wings." Sandaime picked up his pipe. "A bit like me, in that respect. But I can wait. Speaking of Tsunade, I'd like to see her again." Jiraiya shook his head.

"She won't come back, you know." There was an uneasy sensation in his gut. It wasn't what the Hokage was saying, but there was an underlying thread that wasn't being said.

"I know. But I'd like to see her, all the same."

* * *

Sakura had taken the news slightly better than expected, though Inner Sakura had thrown a fit at the news- Sasuke had the bruise on his head to prove it from where the metal bed pan had gone over Naruto's head and hit the Uchiha. ("And for once," Kakashi heard him mutter, "I wish I was as short as Naruto.") Kakashi wasn't worried about Sakura as much as he had been. She had told him that she had known the consequences- maybe not outright or in exact words, but the apology to Iruka before she had continued talking had explained so much more than her report to Anko- and was willing to accept the consequences (this had been outright words, from both Sakura and her other personality). It was her mother that caused the most problems.

The woman, with slightly redder hair than her daughter, had been clearly hoping that this would mean Sakura would give up on being a ninja and would return to being a civilian. For a moment, Kakashi had almost snarled at Haruno-san for the quick steamroll over Sakura's refusal to quit. The emotion caught him by surprise, and he was quick to contain it.

"But your hair's been cut, and your face is scratched, it's not worth losing your looks!" The play on vanity might have worked on someone a little less secure in their body, but Sakura had had weeks of learning to prioritize, and had kept standing her ground against her mother. Kakashi had almost cheered when Haruno-san finally conceded, but he could tell it was only a temporary victory. The woman would still try to take one of his pups away- and thankfully no one was around to see Hatake 'Copy-nin' Kakashi slam his head into a wall the instant the thought crossed his mind. It was one thing to think of them as 'his gennin', thinking of them as 'his pups' was definitely pushing the line. He might have to go to Inochi to get his head checked again if it continued.

**And we'll leave it right there. Next Chapter: Preparing for Tomorrow- Training will start, and there will be a couple of heart to heart talks. We're at the half-way point for the story, I think, or getting there with the next two chapters (why must the middle of any story be so difficult to write?) Please leave a review!**


	8. Preparing for Tomorrow

**Preparing for Tomorrow**

Sasuke jerked upright, a cry of horror and pain locked in his throat. Sweating, he glanced around his room.

He had not dreamed of _that night_ since Naruto had moved in and Kakashi-sensei had changed back from being a dog. His unconsciousness in the second exam had been deep with no dreams until the end, when he had begun to wake up and the sounds of Sakura's battle had mingled with images in his memories. Now, though, that it was over and he was away from danger, the dreams had come back with a vengeance.

Sasuke put his head in his hands. It had been worse, this time, before the memory/nightmare had always ended with him discovering his parents' bodies and looking into the red eyes of his formerly-beloved brother. This time, it had extended- he had run away, only to open another door and find the bodies of his teammates in pools of blood. He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, as if hoping to press the memory back.

_Kakashi-sensei, closest to the door, multiple stabs in his chest and throat cut, he had been protecting the others; Naruto, body badly burned, but face still recognizable and frozen in determination, no fear because Naruto was willing to die to protect; Sakura, hair still long because that's how he would always remember her, pinned sitting up, eyes wide and unseeing, kunai still tightly held in her hand._

"_Bonds like these make you weak- missions come first before friendships!"_

He didn't recognize the voice that had spoken so chillingly at the end. It didn't really sound like Itachi, but it echoed his brother's parting words. Sasuke flopped back, finally taking his hands from his eyes and staring at the two pictures he had by his bedside- one of Team 7, the other of his parents.

"_You're lucky, y'know." _Naruto's voice from a previous conversation during the cleaning echoed slightly. _"You got to have parents."_ Sasuke had shut down at that, of course, and stormed away, angry that Naruto would say something like that. It hadn't been until he had calmed down, and realized Naruto had said it with such a wistful tone that he understood.

Naruto had never known his parents- he probably didn't even know their real names, 'Uzumaki' could have just been a play on 'Naruto' after all- and he had never had a mother tuck him in at night, or a father to idolize. He had lived as an outsider, had watched everyone else around him be happy with their parents, and had been told multiple times that he didn't deserve to have such a thing as family. Sasuke had had that, it was part of what made their deaths so hard, but he had always taken it for granted that everyone else would understand why he was angry and hurt, and it had been frustrating to be with Naruto, who didn't seem to get that the _brother he had idolized_ had _killed his parents_!

But Naruto could understand that betrayal, just not in the same way- He had trusted both Iruka-sensei and Mizuki-sensei, a lot more than any of the other students. Mizuki-sensei had always acted kind to Naruto, even trying to bend rules on occasion (of course, it was all to get Naruto in his debt and make the blonde think Mizuki was someone he could trust and would have eventually ended with Naruto following Mizuki _anywhere_, which would have been worse). Mizuki's betrayal, his attack on Iruka-sensei who protected Naruto and acknowledged him, had been similar enough for parallels to be drawn. Naruto understood betrayal all too well, having had it multiple times, even though he might not have understood the cruel jokes played on the once naïve little boy who didn't know why he was hated.

Sasuke had only been betrayed once.

Getting up, because he had a bad taste in his mouth that he was pretty sure had nothing to do with any physical reason, he opened the door. At first he thought he had headed towards the kitchen, but blinked as he found himself outside his brother's old room instead. Behind the bland wooden door were broken pictures, old mission files, random training equipment, and a futon and a couple items of furniture. All of it belonging to his older brother; he and the others hadn't bothered cleaning Itachi's old room, they had pretty much just dumped stuff in there and shut the door. His hand rested on the wood of the door. Dark eyes staring, but not really seeing anything.

_Why, Nii-san? Why?_ Behind this door had to be a clue if not an answer to that question, but Sasuke couldn't move. He couldn't push the door open, but at the same time he couldn't pull his hand away. Seconds seemed to stretch into eternity until- another hand grabbed his and pulled it away from the door. It held on, and he followed the arm to the person it belonged to. Naruto's hair was even messier than normal. He had his 'closed off' expression on, the term Sasuke and Sakura had dubbed it the moment they had seen it. His eyes were mostly closed, practically slits, and his lack of smile made his mouth seem smaller, which made the whisker-like birthmarks more pronounced- the entire effect made him seem older and more fox-like than any human had a right to be.

It was also impossible to read.

"Did I wake you?" Naruto released his wrist and studied Sasuke a moment before he responded.

"Iie, my nightmares woke me up first." He tilted his head. "I got some tea going, since you don't like hot chocolate."

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised you can boil water, you wouldn't eat ramen otherwise." Sasuke's attempt at levity (a strange reversal, but now he understood why Naruto always made a joke or embarrassed himself when things got tense) fell flat as they went into the kitchen. Naruto poured both of them their individual drink and the two sat across from each other in silence for a long moment. "Ano, what did you dream about?" He hadn't been aware Naruto wasn't sleeping well.

"Eh? Uchiha Sasuke, Mr. I-Don't-Need-to-Talk, is trying Sakura's recomended method of dealing and helping others deal?" Naruto was mocking him, trying to get him angry so he'd drop the subject- Sasuke was a little startled to realize that Naruto knew how to manipulate him without his knowing, but right now, he was too exhausted (mentally and physically) to get worked up.

"Well, I've been wrong before." Sasuke put the cup to his lips to hide the small smirk as Naruto blinked, before his eyes returned to being barely open. "And Sakura is-"

"-Usually right." Naruto finished. He focused on his cup. "Lots of things- Mizuki and Iruka-sensei fighting, Wave mission, those strange nins and their dogs that came after Kakashi-sensei, our fight with Orochimaru . . . the people I know weren't there getting killed, or doing the killing," _Suna no Gaara_, went unsaid. "A couple nights when I got on the wrong side of a couple drunks- they only got a couple hits in reality before the anbu got there, but their threats of more make the dream last longer." Naruto blinked again, but kept his eyes slightly closed even as his faced relaxed. "Huh, it does feel a bit better now that I said it- doesn't sound so weak."

"Naruto, do you have these nightmares often?" He'd rattled them off so casually . . .

"Once or twice a week, unless I'm having a bad week, then they can be pretty much every day." Naruto shrugged. "I've never been really able to sleep the entire night."

And the missing piece of why Naruto was so short despite being able to eat twice his weight in ramen in one sitting came into the picture. Sakura was going to go into mother hen mode when she found out. (It was extremely amusing when that mode was directed at someone else, when it was directed at him, not so much.)

"Huh?" He missed Naruto's question. "Sorry, my attention slipped." Naruto raised an eyebrow, but apparently decided to let it go.

"I said, do you want to talk about your nightmare, since you've heard mine?" Something was slightly off about that statement, but Sasuke was too tired to figure out what. "I've already guessed it's got to do with your brother and the killing of your clan."

" . . . I can't remember the details, but I'll always remember coming into the compound and seeing several bodies- I was eight, and then, my older brother was even more of an idol to me than my father." He'd told several people this, had seen a child trauma psychiatrist almost daily for two years (didn't help, the woman acted as if he hadn't understood what the word 'dead' meant), but he'd never been able to actually _accept_ the events. "I ran, trying to find either one, because neither of them was supposed to die, he- they were invincible in my eyes- I got to my parents room, and . . . my brother was standing over their bodies, he was part-way in the shadows, so I didn't see the blood on his katana." But somehow, telling this story to Naruto wasn't as painful, it was almost strengthening, looking at his best friend and seeing the slightly daring look that was starting to color the closed off expression. "I still . . . my dad was dead, but that didn't matter because Itachi-nii was there and there was nothing he couldn't do, he was a prodigy, practically a symbol to the Uchiha clan of our strength." His love for his brother had always colored that image, because Itachi had always been the measuring stick his father compared him to and he'd always sworn that he would surpass his brother. "He cut my shoulder, knocking me down." Ironically, that same shoulder was the one that Orochimaru put the curse seal on. "Told me he had killed them all, just to try his strength, had left me alive because he wanted to see if I could beat him. He even told me how to do it." Sasuke had never meant to say the next words aloud; he had already sworn he wouldn't follow Itachi, afterall. "I just had to kill my closest friend and I'd get the strongest version of the Sharigan." A soft hiss of air signaled Naruto's surprise, and Sasuke looked up, struck. "I'll never do it! I can't! I promise!" He couldn't lose another brother, not this one, but he'd deserve it because up until a few weeks ago he _had_ been thinking about it.

"I know, you're not your brother." And just like that, Naruto forgave him and made him feel relieved at the same time. "So you dream about that night huh? At least that's only one." Sasuke wasn't sure if Naruto had meant to say that last part aloud, but he let it slide rather than try and hit him. "So, how are you going to beat him, then?"

" . . ." Sasuke's hand found the cursed seal as he looked away from Naruto, "I think I might use this . . . even if it makes me turn into a raging monster," he missed Naruto's flinch, "it'll probably be better than me losing another brother." He had lowered one too many walls tonight, and was eager to put a couple back up.

"Glad I rate somewhat higher than power." Naruto responded drily. He looked at the clock. "You should probably tell Sakura and Kakashi-sensei when they get here, y'know. Sensei might be able to help."

"Yeah." Sasuke sighed and leaned back. "Speaking of beating opponents, what are you going to do about that Gaara kid?"

" . . . Dunno, I was thinking if I could access the fuzz ball's chakra, I could use that to increase my speed and strength- that's how I got the better of Haku." Naruto put down his empty cup with a sigh. "But, I'm not sure about fighting him."

"Eh? Why not?" The Number One Unpredictable Ninja of Kohona struck again. "You like fighting tough opponents."

"Yeah, but his eyes . . ." Naruto crossed his arms and leaned back as well. "His eyes were like mine, Sasuke. I could see it, he's been alone most of his life too, but he can't reach out anymore. He's given up on being accepted." There'd been one day that Naruto had almost given up- a bad day at the academy and a shopkeeper had smacked him with a broom while everyone just ignored him. He'd looked at the glass of the store window to see eyes that he didn't recognized staring out at him, they'd looked so tired . . . but he was too young to think about suicide as an option and later that day he found his favorite ramen stand so the moment had been buried.

"Naruto, you want to help him, don't you?" Sasuke faintly wondered if Naruto had always had the need to meddle with others, or had it been a recent thing with finding out that not all people would reject him once they got to know him.

"You say it like it's a bad thing." Naruto scowled at him- well, more like pouted, Naruto couldn't sneer, scowl or even frown, it all turned into a pout that made him look like a harmless little kid.

"Just promise me you'll wait until after your fight with him is over to try and make friends? I don't want to see you get killed by that sand just because you were talking instead of fighting." Actually, Sasuke didn't want to see Naruto dead at all, but normally he could step in if his teammate was in trouble.

"Alright, he'd probably be more willing to listen then, anyway." Sasuke rolled his eyes, and glanced at the clock. They were going to meet at eight, Naruto could still get three hours of sleep (he was going to need it, according to Kakashi-sensei's parting words yesterday). So with the excuse of putting the cups away, he got behind Naruto.

"Naruto, you should really try to get some more sleep."

"It's a bit late for that, I'll only get an hour and a half by the time I actually fall-" Sasuke quickly cast a sleep genjutsu (Kakashi-sensei had told him that he and Sakura were both good at it, while Naruto was better at Ninjutsu) and caught Naruto before he fell out of his chair.

"You're lucky the others are going to meet us here." Sasuke pulled Naruto over his shoulder, and glanced at Itachi's door. Someday, he'd be ready to open that door and face those ghosts, but for now, he'd move forward, following Naruto until the only way to continue forward was going back.

* * *

Sasuke and Naruto weren't the only members of team seven to wake up from nightmares. In her hospital room where she was hooked to an IV (it was hard to get comfortable with that in her arm), Sakura jerked awake after the second time of seeing the snake that swallowed Naruto proceed to chasing her.

"Damn it, this isn't working."

'**Well, if you can't sleep, go explore the hospital!** Inner Sakura's suggestion made no sense.

"I can't wander around, I'm supposed to be resting."

'**So? Hook the bag to that wheelchair's holder for it and wheel yourself away, that's not too strenuous.**' Sakura frowned, she'd always thought Inner Sakura were her own thoughts that she could never say out-loud, or even at all, and at one point, Inner Sakura was how she wanted to be- confident, able to speak her mind, and able to fight with everything she had. But now that they had split, Inner Sakura was a little . . . different. '**Of course I'm different, I'm not the exact same personality anymore, even though I'm always going to be a part of you.**' That tone- it was almost the same as Anko-san's when she was giving the instructions for the second exam, no nonsense and full of deadly promise. '**I'm going to be repeating myself, aren't I? We share the same mind and soul, but we're going to be different- I'm going to change as time goes on, even though I'm based of your innermost desires and thoughts, which are still yours. I'll always be your kick-ass tag-in when you need me, though.**'

Sakura thought about that for a moment, it made sense. Eventually, when she finally grew into her own and was more confident and able to not only be strong and capable but know that she was, she'd no longer have an inner personality that raged at the world when she was too scared and timid to do it herself. In fact, Inner Sakura had been fading to the back of her mind recently- ever since team seven's gennin had banded together instead of staying apart- because she knew her boys would back her up and encourage her and any criticism would be supportive and only to make her better and stronger. It was only because of Ino's botched attempt that Inner Sakura had been revived and made stronger, and the stress on her mind and body with the no sleep and taking multiple soldier pills during the exam had made the splitting more than just a possibility, because Sakura hadn't wanted to become useless and Inner Sakura had split because Sakura needed to pass out but she didn't want to leave her teammates without her help in some way.

'**Correct! Of course, you already knew this, this is your mind, after all.**' Inner Sakura was practically grinning. '**Now, how about exploring? Ino's here too, y'know, so are the other girls.**'

" . . . I'm going to be leaving in the morning." Resting and not using chakra were things she could do at home or while watching her teammates, that's all that could be done to repair the damage to her chakra coils. "Ah, I need a name for you, don't I?"

'**Especially since I'm not going to be completely you.**' Inner Sakura agreed. '**I was just going to ask. 'Inner Sakura' no longer defines me.**'

"Split Sakura?"

'**Okay, Naruto-kun and Sasuke-kun could come up with better names than that.**' The personality huffed.

"My name backwards? Arukas?"

'**Sounds like a bastardization of Iruka-sensei's name to me.**' Sakura closed her eyes. Trying to think. '**How about Hime? I know I rule.**'

_No. You're still a part of me. Zakura, with a 'Z'?_

'**Still sounds the same.**'

_This is going to take awhile._

'**Hey, I can wait, just make sure it's a good strong name.**'

_Of course, can't have a wimpy sounding name. _Sasuke's sarcasm was starting to rub off on her. More on the other personality though.

Thankfully, dawn and the papers for checkout came quickly, and Sakura was able to leave. She now understood Naruto and Kakashi-sensei's open dislike of hospitals- they were rather colorless and depressing, and everyone was convinced that if you were admitted you were suddenly made of glass and had regressed to being a toddler. She started running, but had to slow when she became winded way too quickly. A hand on her shoulder steadied her for a moment.

"Y'know, as much as I completely agree with putting distance between one and hospitals, you probably shouldn't run after just being released with orders to take it easy." Sakura blinked up at Kakashi, whose visible eye glittered in a genuine smile. "I just missed picking you up and saw you take off. You're moving pretty fast even with the damage."

"It was mostly to my chakra coils, I can't use chakra, but that doesn't mean I can't run the normal way." Sakura stated defensively, Kakashi just held up his hands.

"I didn't say anything." He picked her up. "But this will be faster." In far less time than it would have taken Sakura, they were outside the Uchiha's main house. Sasuke glanced up from where he was checking the several cats that had stuck around the estate after the massacre (some he suspected had been dumped there by people wanting to get rid of their pets, thinking the compound completely abandoned.) "Yo. Where's Naruto?"

"Sleeping, He was up from about two till five, so I did that simple dreamless sleeping genjutsu you showed us. Need me to wake him up?" Kakashi was interrupted by Sakura before he could even make a sound.

"And you would know because you've been up since then as well, I suppose?" Sasuke shot her a look, but it quickly melted.

"I have nightmares too. Naruto's are a bit more frequent, though, he says he can't really get much sleep when he's on his own and someone's not on guard." Perhaps not in those words, but it was scary how Sasuke was starting to understand Naruto's silences just as well as his words. He stood, pushing that aside rather than dwell on it. "C'mon in. Did you get breakfast?"

"Not real food!" Sakura shuddered. Kakashi chuckled and joined them at the table. They'd already seen his face without his mask, and since he didn't want both Sakura's nagging him about how eating fast wasn't healthy, he'd recently compromised with taking it off when they were eating meals at the Uchiha estate. Almost immediately as he'd gotten a plate, he realized Sasuke was acting slightly jumpy- one of the ways Iruka said he showed stress.

"Sasuke, are you alright? Do you need to go back to sleep?"

"No, I'll be alright, I woke up at four thirty, so I can live with missing two and half hours of sleep." Sasuke blinked, as if realizing something. "But it does have to do with the nightmares, Sensei."

"I'm not a shrink, Sasuke. But I'll listen and try to help."

"Should I-?" Sasuke shook his head, stopping Sakura.

"No, I've talked to Naruto, and he thinks you guys need to know." With that, Sasuke launched himself into retelling them both about _that night_, and Itachi's final words, as well as he idea to actually use the curse seal instead. When he had finished, he glanced away, suddenly frightened that they'd hate him. _Now I know why Naruto ran when that drunk told us about Kyuubi_. A hand ruffling his hair brought his attention back to Kakashi-sensei.

"Thank you for telling me, Sasuke, I know that was difficult." Kakashi leaned back. "I must admit, there's been a lot of confusion over the massacre, some details don't add up, others are missing, it's been a puzzle I've been trying to figure out since it happened and I," He pointed to his covered eye, "had a good friend in your clan. But your clan had been hit the hardest when Kyuubi attacked, and most of the survivors stuck close to Kohona afterwards, because it wasn't just the Byakugan secrets that other villages were after- I think Itachi and Shinsui were the first two allowed to go on missions outside the village and patrols, actually." He was rambling, he could tell he was losing them. "The point is, Sasuke, you weren't the only one that thought Uchiha Itachi was a model nin, there'd been the start of tension between your father and him that you wouldn't have seen, it's a popular belief that your father's pushing Itachi to continuously get stronger and constant mission taking was what made him snap."

"You're saying my brother went insane because of my dad?" Sasuke hadn't heard this, partly because at the time the report would have been made he was still trapped between the memory of his idol and the cold-blooded killer that had killed his own family. He'd never have understood then that sometimes people pushed around would have enough and start to push back. He also wouldn't have believed that his father had hurt Itachi, because he had never seen it with his child-filtered naïve eyes.

"It happens, Nins get pushed to the breaking point on missions- there are only so many times you can be beaten before you just break. And either you lash out at others, or you turn that destruction to yourself."

"Oh." Sasuke blinked, something shifting inside his heart. The idea that Itachi hadn't been in his right mind, that he'd stopped being the brother Sasuke loved because someone else had hurt him, made it easier to understand. "So, he's a mad dog- no offense- that needs to be put down." It was the simplest analogy that came to mind. Itachi, his beloved brother, had also been killed that night with the clan, and the missing nin that had his name now wasn't his brother. The terrified eight yearold grabbed onto that idea like a life line, because Itachi-nii couldn't be pure evil, though he'd never be perfect to Sasuke in any form ever again.

"None taken." Kakashi ruffled his hair. "Now, on to more important matters, since Naruto is going up against a strong opponent in a month, I'm going to need to focus on expanding his ninjutsu and speed. I don't intend to ignore either of you, but-"

"It is okay sensei, we'll help Naruto win anyway we can!" Sakura smiled. "I can still throw kunai!"

"That sounds ominous. Morning Sakura, 'Kashi-sensei." Naruto yawned as he entered the kitchen, he was still sleepy, and his eyes weren't fully open again. "Teme, what the hell did you do?" Sasuke just ignored him, and Naruto decided to be mature and ignore him as well. "So, what's first?"

"First tell me what you think of your opponent." Kakashi put down his chopsticks. Naruto tilted his head.

"Other than he looks like a panda? That sand moves even when he doesn't make any type of hand movements, and it's capable of crushing people." Naruto was trying _not_ to remember the sound girl's cries. "He doesn't move though, the sand does all the work, and I don't know how fast either him or the sand can go."

"Alright, what type jutsus can you use to neutralize sand?"

"Water right?" Naruto glanced at Sakura, who nodded. "To make it . . . mud?"

"And fire, it can turn sand to glass." Sasuke pointed out. He shifted at the looks. "What? One of my older cousins did glass-blowing for a hobby after he lost the ability to go on missions."

"I think that's the first non-ninja fact I've heard you ever say." Naruto smiled.

"Okay, so water and fire justsu's . . ." Kakashi brought them back on track.

"Even with those, I don't think that will do much other than slow him down." Sakura frowned. "Sasuke, you got a different view of the fight didn't you?" He'd been telling her about the mist girl's movements during her fight, and had noticed a few more things than Naruto.

"Yeah, the girl's senbon didn't make it to him because they hit sand- it moved to stop those needles, and looked like it was constantly swirling around him." He rubbed his eyes. That had been difficult to watch- he'd been able to see the chakra infused with the sand, which made it difficult to follow since it was everywhere in the ring. "So it's a good bet that it will block Naruto even if he gets passed the offensive layer of sand."

"And that's where one of the techniques I'm going to teach you will come in handy. It's going to be a Naruto only technique, but I have two set aside for each of you when the time comes. If Naruto learns it quickly," (More like when Naruto learns it quickly, he was always going past expectations) "we can even start teaching you the theory and basics- or just theory, sorry, Sakura-chan."

"It's alright, I learned summoning before them, anyway." She was a little put out, but knew better. "Ah, before I forget, I think I need to give Inner Sakura a better name, since it's hard to say quickly, and it would clear up some confusion . . ." Kakashi almost choked.

"You're naming it? Sakura, most people try to ignore or get rid of their split personalities." Sasuke pointed out dryly, Naruto had tilted his head.

"What about Kohana?"

"Too dainty, she said."

"And he's encouraging her." Sasuke muttered and got up. "Sensei, we've got a training area on the grounds we can use, Naruto finished cutting some of the grass and extracting rusted kunai last week."

"Alright, Sakura, Naruto, let's go."

"Sensei, what's the name of the technique you're going to teach me?"

"It's called Rasengan."

* * *

**Originally, this was all going to be one chapter with the previous one, but I realized that it would have been way too long. **

**If anyone found anything confusing in the explanations I've given, please let me know. **

**Naruto's Training: I am not going to describe it. I've got enough plot exposition and bonding in this chapter as it is, I'll do it as flash backs if I need to, but I'm not going to describe learning Rasengan (a lot of people love to write it though, so you could read one of their fics, or the manga, or even watch the anime! Though I'm pretty sure most of you already have if you're reading the fanfiction for it . . .) Let's face it, you people are here for a story, not a step by step guide of ninja techniques.**

**Next Chapter: Tomorrow's Battles **


	9. Tomorrow's Battles

Tomorrow's Battles

Morning of the finals came bright and sunny. The streets of Kohonagure were packed as people from the other villages came to see the three battles- one a Kage's son.

Jiraiya stayed well out of the way of anyone, even forgoing a trip to the hot springs for research to watch the proceedings. The toads had kept an eye on Naruto's progress for him, and he'd been pleasantly surprised. He watched in amusement as children chased each other, barely even shifting as someone came up beside him.

"Looks like half of Sunagure came." Ibiki scowled as he addressed the Sanin. "And quite a few Mist . . ."

"Mm, apparently, Tanaka Rin is considered a prodigy and Rookie- rumor has it she's being trained to take a spot as a Swordsman." Jiraiya absently glanced at his note book. "Her Instructor was a student of one, but didn't accept the spot, choosing to be a teacher instead."

"So, the Rookie of the mist is going up against Gai's student- who has no chakra." Ibiki studied the surrounding buildings, knowing perfectly well that Anbu were hiding there.

"Taijutsu isn't something to sneeze at, it doesn't deplete chakra like Ninjutsu or Genjutsu does." Jiraiya spoke non-comitally, before glancing at him. "But she's not going to be an issue, you know, the real danger is the Kazekage's son."

"So I've heard . . . two of them in one place . . ." Ibiki shook his head. "There are evacuation routes in place if something goes wrong."

"Ah, the Kazekage has arrived." Jiraiya studied the group that was heading toward the Hokage tower. I guess I better go talk to Sensei, see you later."

* * *

Sakura shifted uneasily in the crowd as she made it over to where the others were sitting. She'd already talked to Naruto, but there was no point for her to stick around, especially since there was a chance that they wouldn't get seats. Sasuke and Kakashi were still talking to Naruto, and as she joined the other Kohona Rookies, they left the ring as well.

"Ready for this?" Sasuke looked at her as he sat down, passing the chips Chouji offered him to Kiba and Akamaru who practically dove into the bag.

"You mean Naruto to actually beat us?" Sakura gave him a wry smile. The idea was not as strange as it had once been, but it still left them feeling slightly off- like they should have gone together or not at all. "Surprisingly, yes, he deserves it." Around them, everyone quieted to listen to the Jounin in charge of refereeing the matches give the last minute instructions. "He's worked really hard for this . . ." She glanced around, and tilted her head. There were a lot of jounin there, several she recognized as the parents of her fellow rookies, and with the exception of Shikamaru's father, and all of them were studying Naruto with something akin to mild interest instead of the anger and cold hate. "Sasuke . . . the jounins . . ." Sasuke blinked from where he had been studying the fighters and looked around. "Do you see it?"

" . . . Yeah." What had changed? There were still a few that looked at Naruto with barely disguised disgust, but there was still curiosity even in those faces. Before anything more could be said, the Kages entered their box, along with several 'envoys' of the different villages- including the mist jounin and sound jounin. Behind the Hokage stood Jiraiya, who was looking bored.

'**Hey, that guy resembles the one that attacked us!**' Sakura jerked as the still unnamed personality that was formerly called Inner Sakura suddenly shouted as the Hokage stood to give a speech. Sasuke gripped her arm and looked at her in concern. She shook her head at him, and then focused her attention on the alternate personality.

_What do you mean?_

'**That guy from sound! His hair's pulled back and he's not as pale, but they still look alike!**' The personality insisted, and Sakura looked at the jounin in question. For a moment, she thought he looked at her, but his eyes continued moving. '**See? He looks similar!**'

_It's a coincidence, it has to be, security has gotten tighter and they would have checked to make sure everyone was where they were supposed to be._ Sakura argued back, but-

'**Uh-huh, and I suppose no-one can be in two places at once?**'

-There were clones and henge and genjutsu that could be used and even if they looked at everything and were ninjas, the fact still remained that the enemy was a ninja as well with just as many tricks up his sleeve, including some that they didn't know. Because as a ninja, what you didn't know _could_ kill you. Hadn't that been one of the points in the first exam?

The problem was that there was nothing she could do because there was too many people between her and her Sensei and they wouldn't be able to stop this exam for any reason short of a riot.

Applause broke Sakura out of her thoughts and she realized that the first battle was starting. As they all sat down- Naruto, Shikamaru and Neji close to the rail so they could jump in, with Gaara opposite with his own team- Sasuke leaned over.

"Are you okay? Is it her?"

"I'm fine, but . . ." She trailed off, remembering how they had been hurt and Sasuke's loss of control when he woke up. Would something like that happen now? Her Inner personality was beginning to yell at her for not doing anything, and she winced at the headache. "I think there's going to be trouble, Sasuke- really bad trouble." Sasuke looked at her confused, but something on her face must have said something that she hadn't because he just nodded.

"Hey, Shino." Sasuke looked back at where the Aburame was sitting quietly, though one eye was no doubt on the girl sitting between him and Kiba. When he was sure he had the other's attention, Sasuke continued. "Can your bugs get Kakashi-sensei? Sakura needs to talk to him."

"About really bad trouble?" Ino had been listening and had turned back to look at them with Chouji, Tenten was sitting next to them, but her eyes were on Lee as he and Rin began to fight. "What's wrong, Sakura, losing your nerve?"

"I think I just saw the guy that attacked us in the second exam." Sakura retorted, trying to stop her alternate personality from doing anything herself. That made Ino shut up, and kept the remark Kiba had been about to make from passing his lips.

* * *

At the rail, ignorant of their teammates, Naruto, Shikamaru and Neji watched Lee and Rin exchange blows- Lee with fists and Rin with twin sais.

"C'mon Lee, you can do it!"

"Tch, she's playing him, Uzumaki- you saw how she took out that other gennin, she's just going to wear him down until she can take him out." Neji scoffed. "Lee's fated to lose- he has no chakra or justsu he can even use."

"You and fate." Naruto looked at him in annoyance. "Is that your answer to everything, even if you got bad marks on a test? You were fated to fail that test?"

"Don't pretend to try and comprehend, Uzumaki, it's something you'll never understand." Neji retorted, and Shikamaru resisted the urge to groan out loud. How had he managed to get in between these two?

"Who said I wanted to try?" That made both of them look at Naruto in surprise, though it didn't show. "It's a stupid idea, to think your destiny is written in stone, and I'm not stupid." Neji shifted, about to say otherwise. "Things can change, people can change- do you think Sasuke's fate was to have his clan killed and him be the only survivor? That wasn't fate, that was a man who chose to kill for his own gain. There's always a choice that can be made, you just have to work and search until you find it." Naruto met Neji's eyes in a challenge. Neji scowled, not liking the idea that his father had chosen to die. "Lee knows the odds are against him, yet he still chooses to fight. Call him a fool if you want, but I bet he's going to win."

* * *

In the arena, Rin dodged another kick, quickly stabbing that leg. Lee, to his credit, just gave a soft grunt, and pulled back, now favoring that leg.

"You're good!" Rin smiled, "But how long are you going to last on that leg?"

"I'm flattered you think so, but I won't give up until I absolutely can't fight anymore!" Lee held up his fists. "Why aren't you using your ninjutsu?"

"I could ask you the same thing- you really favor taijutsu, don't you?" Rin charged in, twisting to avoid the punches even as Lee avoided her strikes.

"I can't use ninjutsu- My chakra coils won't allow it."

"What?" Rin blinked, staring at him before moving again. "Then how the hell did you make it to genin?"

"There are ways, to do things, without using chakra! Stealth, climbing- you don't have to use chakra for those!" Lee retorted. "It takes hard work and much training, but I will become a ninja with only taijutsu!" Once again they were apart, staring each other down.

"Then, I won't insult you anymore." One sais went into her belt and she held up a hand. "Fight me with all you've got, I'll use all my abilities, so you better do the same!" They charged again, this time, Rin's sais got him in the shoulder, and even as Lee's punch hit her in the chest, water surrounded him. "Water Lock." She removed the sais.

-Flashback-

"_Lee, I want you to do your best, so I'm giving you permission to open the first three gates- But I want you to use them only if you can't beat her with your speed." Gai-sensei was uncharacteristically serious, but Lee and the rest of Team Gai knew that their sensei wasn't a complete idiot like most people were willing to think._

"_I promise, Gai-sensei! I won't let you down!"_

"_Lee!"_

"_Gai-sensei!"_

"_Do they always have to do that?" Tenten sweatdropped in the background._

-EndFlashback-

A huge burst of chakra broke the water lock and Rin dodged backwards, eyes widening. There was a loud thud and she felt the ground shake as Lee dropped the weights.

"I thought you said you couldn't use chakra?" Rin stared at the craters made by the weights. How the heck had the gennin in front of her survived carrying that much weight?

"I said I couldn't use ninjutsu- however, I am fully capable of opening chakra gates." Lee corrected and stretched. "Shall we?"

"Why not?" Rin was already trying to come out with a new strategy- Lee had been fast, and that had been _with_ the weights, so how fast could he be now? Faster than her, but she didn't need speed . . .

* * *

Up at the rail and observing, Kakashi turned to Gai. "You taught him the Chakra Gates? Gai, his body hasn't fully developed!"

"I am fully aware of my students limitations, Kakashi." Gai looked at him. "But Lee is a genius of hard work- he'll train and train to reach levels that others might achieve with ease, but he'll be all the stronger for it." Gai turned back to the fight. "Much like Uzumaki, in a way."

"Perhaps, but Naruto doesn't run the danger of having his muscles torn apart." Kakashi saw the flash of chakra- Lee had gotten behind Rin, who quickly stabbed him in the stomach even as he grabbed her. In that same instant, using the metal as a conductor, she unleashed a raiton jutsu, even as he threw her to the ground. Both hit the ground hard.

For one moment, no one moved or even breathed. Then both of them began to move. Lee removed the sais and tossed it to the spot at her feet, and one hand went to his stomach. Rin was holding on arm. Both shook slightly, though Lee was even worse. For one long moment (or at least, it seemed pretty long) they just stared at each other.

Rin raised her hand. "I forfeit." And she fell to her knees.

Cheers erupted from the stands for Lee, who was still looking at Rin. "Why?"

"Because, if I hadn't gotten my arm out in time, my head would've been busted open and my neck broken- as it is, my arm's broken in more than one place." Rin looked up at him. "You slowed down, when you threw me. And my blade missed anything vital, so that raiton might've caused pain, might've slowed you down, but it wouldn't have killed you. If I'd had a team, one of them could have gotten you- but one on one?" The med nins were quickly surrounding them. "I won't win."

Up in the stands, Neji and Naruto were arguing. "She forfeited, it doesn't count!"

"Lee _won!_ She might have forfeited, but that's because she recognized Lee!" Naruto objected.

"Whatever, Hyuuga, we're up." Shikamaru jumped into the arena with Neji, more than a little annoyed- it was too much of an effort to get really worked up, but he was hoping that he'd be able to take a long nap after this was over.

"Oy, Shikamaru, you better beat him!" Shikamaru muttered under his breath, Naruto just never quit.

"You should give up, you won't beat me. You don't even want to fight." Neji pointed out.

"I should, but then I'd have to listen to Ino and my mom." Shikamaru retorted, absently stretching. _Not to mention Naruto._ He shot a quick glance at the blonde, who was looking at Gaara. He'd followed Naruto's lead in the academy when they played hooky- Naruto always knew places where no one (except Iruka) would find them. The couple times he'd been pulled into pranks it was because of Naruto, no matter how much he objected, Naruto had always been able to get him to do things. "Besides, if I don't beat you, you'll have to go against Naruto, that's not something I'd wish on anyone."

"Hmph, and what could the dead last of the academy do?"

"For all you brag about your eyes, you really don't see much, do you? Naruto's not a person that gives up easily." Shikamaru sighed, remembering Naruto practicing throwing kunai even as everyone else went to lunch.

"He's a fool."

"Maybe. But he's a fool I'd follow." Neji scowled and activated his Byakugan, and Shikamaru sighed. "I'll beat you, even with those eyes, because Naruto asked." Neji charged in annoyance.

-Flashback-

"_C'mon Shikamaru, you can do it! Beat Sasuke-teme!"_

"_Oi, I thought we're teammates!" Sasuke looked at Naruto in annoyance._

"_So? Shikamaru, you better beat him!"Naruto ignored him. "Show him what you've got!"_

"_Alright, alright."_

"_You're actually listening to him?" Sasuke raised an eyebrow._

"_It's impossible not to- he won't stop until I do, and it's a lot easier if I actually listen. He's half the reason I didn't completely fail taijutsu in the academy." Shikamaru muttered. "Besides, he's usually right."_

-EndFlashback-

Shikamaru dodged Neji's Strikes, before suddenly stopping and standing still. Neji froze, his hand an inch away from Shikamaru's face.

"You forgot, didn't you? My clan might be small, and perhaps isn't as illustrious, but we're not ones you should forget." Shikamaru pointed down, and Neji saw their shadows were connected. "You stepped right into my shadow to strike, Neji. 360 degree vision, and you're so busy focusing on me that you didn't even look down." Shikamaru straightend, and so did Neji. "You lose, Hyuuga." Neji tried to pull out of the jutsu, and panicked as his hand copied Shikamaru's actions and pulled out a kunai. The other hand raised up. "I forfeit." Neji blinked as Shikamaru released him, then turned and walked away.

* * *

"Seriously, you forfeited?" Naruto looked at him.

"That technique uses too much chakra- first to activate it and catch him, then to hold him- and it's especially hard to hold him when he's fighting to get out of it." Shikamaru muttered.

"Right." Naruto got ready to jump into the arena.

"Naruto." He glanced back to look at Shikamaru. "Be careful, he's not normal."

"I'll be fine, Dattebayo!" And then Naruto was standing across from Gaara. The entire stadium tensed in preparation.

* * *

"Interesting fights, your little leaves aren't something to take lightly." The Kazekage remarked, looking at the Sandaime. "But I am concerned about this one . . . Gaara . . . is not an opponent to be taken lightly."

"I have faith that Uzumaki might surprise you."

"I don't see how, that boy crushed almost all the bones in my student's body- she's lucky she didn't die." The sound jounin murmured, studying the two fighters.

"You've lost two gennin, then, not a very good showing for sound." The mist jounin noted.

"Perhaps, but even the best equiped nins can fall and fail missions- there is always an element of luck in anything we do." The sound jounin retorted. "Dosu was better at long range attacks, yet he chose to get close to an opponent who excelled in close range fighting, Kin's specialty is also long range, more suited to ambush, her opponent however, was more suited for heavy combat. Knowing and playing your strengths is important, and both made the mistake of assuming that their strengths could beat every opponent they went against. It is an easy, but costly, mistake that any nin, gennin, chunin or even the most experienced jounin, can make."

"Indeed, arrogance gets you killed if you're not careful." Jiraiya muttered, earning a nod from both the mist and sound jounin.

"I'm curious, though . . . those clones the boy is making are different from the normal bushin I've seen- they're more . . . substantive." The Kazekage looked at the Hokage as in the arena, multiple Naruto clones were assaulting Gaara- a couple even using fire jutsu. "And able to use jutsu."

" . . . You've already guessed, I take it?" the Hokage gave a small smile. "Naruto is a prodigy in his own right, though perhaps not as noted as the others in his peer group."

"What is that?" The Sound jounin actually jerked forward as Naruto formed a sphere of swirling chakra to slam into the shield of sand.

"That was the fourth hokage's technique, if I remember correctly." The Kazekage raised an eyebrow. "I was unaware he passed it down."

"He passed it to his most promising student, and that student has decided to pass it down to Uzumaki. I believe he has two other techniques set aside for his other two students." The Hokage smiled. In any ninja village, especially with the low life expectancy of the ninjas, there were two ways to pass on techniques- one was if a ninja was fortunate to live long enough to teach it to their children, and was the way most bloodlines worked, the other, the one most nins not in a clan and with no children of their own preferred, was to pass it on to students, who would continue the tradition of passing on the jutsu to their own students. Seven Swordsmen of Mist were an excellent example of this tradition, usually only taking one student to teach and then pass on their sword (if they weren't killed and the blade taken). At the same time the Hokage was talking to the kazekage, a mednin approached the sound jounin.

"Sir, your student is awake and asking for you." The sound jounin nodded, and stood. Making his apologies, he followed the mednin out.

"A genin capable of the fourth's technique . . ."

"Crap, the kid's in trouble." The Mist jounin brought their attention back to the fight, in which Gaara, reacting to the shock of being hit by the Rasegan (which had penetrated through the sand and had hit his shoulder), completely engulfed Naruto in sand.

"Damnit, Naruto!" Kakashi gripped the rail tightly, though whether that was to be ready to launch himself or to keep himself from launching over the rail he wasn't actually sure. He was dimly aware of Gai moving closer, again, he didn't know if Gai would help or hinder him if he tried to interfere.

Sasuke and Sakura had jumped to their feet with simultaneous shouts for their teammate- both almost losing control of the seal and alternate personality. Hinata squeaked and covered her mouth as Akamaru whimpered, making Kiba reach up to hold him. The only emotion Shino showed was a tightening of fists. Ino and Tenten had grabbed each other in a semi-hug like hold, and Chouji had dropped his bags of chips, mouth hanging open slightly.

Shikamaru, however, watched almost expressionlessly- the only sign he was worried about Naruto was the focus of his eyes and the slight tenseness of his body.

"Tch, the fool was destined to lose." Neji muttered, all but slouching back against his seat. (1)

The sand compressed slightly- then suddenly exploded outwards, propelled by a blood red chakra that emanated from Naruto, who landed in a crouch, unharmed.

Gaara stared in shock, staring at the boy in front of him, inside him, the bijou that had been sealed away roared in recognition. Blue eyes that were tinted red met Gaara's black rimmed green eyes. There was no give, and a deadly promise that this time, this opponent wasn't going to back down just because he came close to death.

For the first time in years, Gaara felt fear for his existence. Shukaku the Ichibi took advantage, lunging forward and taking partial control, the sand beginning to cling to Gaara and change his form, resembling an animal head and tail.

"Oh, no . . ." Temari whispered. "Oh no, no . . ." Around her, several sand nins began to move- hopefully to do damage control.

"This isn't going to be good . . ." Kankurro sank into his seat, feeling faint. He wasn't the only one. All around the arena, civilians and nins alike began to pass out.

Sakura swayed on her feet, one hand gripping Sasuke's arm tightly. '**Snap out of it, it's a genjutsu!**' Her alternate personality surged forward without warning- "Kai!" Sakura blinked, and almost fell to the ground. She still wasn't supposed to use chakra for another two weeks so her coils would heal back to normal, and her alternate personality's take over to do a simple release had hurt more than she thought was possible. Next to her, Sasuke was still standing, but most everyone else in the stands seemed to be passed out. In the center of the arena, Naruto and Gaara were still fighting, both too caught up in their fight to notice anything other than their opponents next move.

The sand nins that Temari had assumed were moving to do damage control removed their disguises and revealed sound nins, who quickly attacked those jounins that had managed to detect the genjutsu.

* * *

"What is the meaning of this?" The Hokage demanded, but beside him the Kazekage just shook his head, still too focused on the fact Gaara was close to losing control.

"I don't know, Hokage, but it was not of my doing." Screams from outside the arena made Jiraiya half turn, before glancing at his former sensei.

"Go see the situation- mednins, start evacuating the sleepers to a safe place!" Jiraiya shot out of there, Baki following at a nod from the Kazekage. "Why would Sound attack if they wanted allies?" The mist jounin leaped into a fight of Sound nins vs some leaf chunin.

"Because, sensei, I told them to." Both Kages whirled, and saw the sound Jounin- but with a smirk the genjutsu that had hidden his form fell. "It's so good to be back." Orochimaru grinned maniacally at them.

* * *

Sakura ignored the rather creative swears that her alternate personality was shouting at her as she dodged a sound nin's sword. Sasuke growled and slammed a kunai into the man's throat before he could recover enough to raise the sword again. Sharingan activated, he just barely saw the blur of what might have been another sound nin, when Kakashi blocked the incoming blow.

"Well done, both of you." Kakashi took out the sound nin easily. "Sakura, are you alright?"

"Sort of, Sensei." There was an animalistic scream, and the entire structure shook. The three looked to see both Gaara and Naruto, looking more animal like with sand and blood-red chakra forming outlines of the beasts within, go through a hole that had appeared in the arena's wall. "Naruto . . ."

Kakashi felt like swearing and getting a drink of sake- preferably straight from the bottle. It had been a long time since he had ever felt that urge. The problem was, there wasn't a lot of time to get someone else, and danger was everywhere, even if they did try to find someplace safe.

"Sasuke, Sakura, follow them, make sure Naruto doesn't lose control- try to move them away from the village." Kakashi quickly defended them from another sound nin. "I'll follow once I'm done here- but neither of you nor Naruto are allowed to die today."

"Hai, Sensei." Sasuke gripped Sakura's arm to keep her steady and the two ran after their teammate and his opponent. Kakashi pushed down memories of a previous war and was joined by Gai as he finally encountered an opponent that didn't go down in one hit. No one noticed that the spot where the Kazekage's eldest children had sat was empty- they too, had followed after the two jinchurriki.

* * *

Outside, there was panic civilians were rushing to the safe zones, guarded by chunins, and Junins were fighting not only sound nins that had disguised themselves as travelers, but also mercenaries that were apparently hired by the sound. In one part of town, a giant snake lunged at an injured Ebisu, only to be halted by a giant toad. Another Jounin grabbed Ebisu as Jiraiya stared at the snake.

_Orochimaru . . ._ but where was the traitor?

* * *

The Kazekage swore as a giant snake came out of _nowhere_ and tried to swallow him. He landed in the arena, and managed to see past the falling body of the snake enough to glimpse the Hokage and the Snake Sannin send attacks at each other, the hokage moving the fight out of the arena. Orochimaru was the Otokage- that would explain why the Otokage had sent missives and envoys asking for an alliance to attack Kohona. However tempting it was to the Kazekage, he had refused- Gaara was as likely to kill his own allies if he let Shukaku loose. He had ignored any requests to meet in private to discuss the matter, and had breathed a sigh of relief when not only the Otokage had stopped pressing, but the Suna council had also stopped harping about it. Wordlessly, he used a jutsu that cut the snake's head in half. _Gaara . . . Shukaku . . . Damn._ Neither boy was still in the arena. Hoping to stop the Shukaku before any allies or innocents were killed, he followed the trail, removing the ceremonial hat and robes to reveal his own jounin vest. He barely spared the silver-haired leaf jounin a glanced as the other joined him. "So, Kyuubi wasn't destroyed after all- I had thought the rumor to incredible to be true, even though it was the Yellow Flash."

"I'd say we have more important concerns than decade old events, Kazekage." Kakashi retorted. _At least they moved away from the village . . ._

"You'd be right."

* * *

**(1) That was where I had originally planned to stop. I then expanded it to include the beginning of the invasion- as you can see, there are some major changes. **

**Now, supposedly the Naruto manga is supposed to be finished up in seven chapters, but I'm not sure how accurate that statement is (or when the countdown started, for that matter) but either way, loose ends have been wrapping up- including the complete back-story of what really happened to Gaara's mom and why his uncle tried to kill him! So there might be some spoilers coming up for those of you who aren't up to date, but as stated before, I'm not going to go through an quote verbatim the manga- things are going to be slightly mixed up, but still- some spoilers if you aren't up to date.**

**Next Up: Sacrificing Tomorrow: Not everyone is going to survive the invasion unscathed . . . sacrifices must be made to protect those precious to you.**


	10. Sacrificing Tomorrow, Part 1

**Wow, you all are making me blush with the reviews. (Note to self: Make sure I don't get a big head.) And I'm sorry I didn't get this up sooner, things in the real world have been sort of hectic, to say the least- My dad had a heart attack followed by surgery, and then I had surgery, papers and exams, and then I managed to misplace my outline for this chapter.**

**I'm splitting the chapter into two parts, on that note as I have half of it already typed, and I feel like a heel just leaving you hanging. There is some plot exposition in the begining, but it had to go somewhere- it will be key later on, too. The next part will have Team 7 and the conclusion of the battle between Garra and Naruto, this part will focus on things happening with the rest of the rookies and other people.**

**I know some of you were slightly disappointed with Shikamaru and Neji's fight, but the point of it was that Neji, despite all his claims and talks to the contrary, really has a temper. He's angry at Naruto, and the fact Shikamaru supports Naruto means that he wanted to beat up Shikamaru in Naruto's place- and he completely forgot his opponent's unique jutsu. Because of that, the real damage done to Neji was to his ego and pride, not to his body. Anyway, here's the next chapter.**

* * *

**Sacrificing Tomorrow- Part 1**

Rin grit her teeth as one of the mednins checked her arm as they carted her and Lee to the med station inside the arena. Lee was already asleep, and mostly healed.

There were three types of healing jutsu. The first was pretty basic and mostly used with training scrapes and bruises- it was also used for diagnosing the really bad injuries. The second was for damages caused to nins by their own jutsus, and involved intense knowledge of chakra coils, systems and required a lot of chakra control on the part of the healer.

The third was for on the battle field. This type was used for battle wounds that almost split a person open. Arguably, it could be considered the advanced version of the first type, but there was a huge difference to the healers. The first type used only the healer's own chakra. The third used the healer's and the injured parties chakra to patch them up.

Chakra was an energy that wasn't always under a ninja's control. Children who had it occasionally had it flare when they were angry and distressed, some even having a slightly innate sense of control to manipulate it enough to set something on fire, cause water to spray up from a sprinkler or pond to splash someone they didn't like or even give another an electric shock. Chakra also boosted one's immune system, and as a result ninjas didn't suffer from colds as often as their civilian counterparts, and healed a bit quicker from scraped knees and bruises- by about 50 percent faster.

There were a lot of limitations on healing, despite the civilian view that med nins were capable of healing everything.

First on that list was damage to bones- yes, med nins could heal breaks in bones, but the bone had to be set first, otherwise the bone would heal crookedly. Healing jutsu could manipulate bones into place, but there was no guarantee that it would heal straight. So for the most part, nins with broken bones had to suffer through several days of splints and going into medical centers for the med nins to make sure that everything healed perfectly straight.

Second was the damage to chakra coils, as well as chakra depletion. Any med nin was capable of boosting their patient's chakra to a safe level if they used too much- a ninja could die from complete chakra depletion, and those that didn't generally never recovered to the level they had been before. Damage to chakra coils, while capable of being healed completely by medical jutsu, was better treated by letting the coils naturally recover from the strain, otherwise there was the possibility of a nin being unable to naturally produce their own chakra (there were enough cases reported that no one pushed the med nin that treated them to completely fix the damage).

Finally, and this was what made the third type of jutsu so difficult, damage to organs, whether by a blade or jutsu. When a nin was stabbed, their own chakra diverted from fighting to healing, speed up the clotting process, produce more blood to replace what was lost, etc. Med nins sped up that natural process significantly, but there was a catch, and a reason why even though a ninja was healed they didn't immediately spring up to their feet and back into battle. And this reason was the same reason soldier pills were invented.

Completely healing a nin from a critical injury- or even partially- used up the healer's and the ninja's chakra. (Healers could not afford to lose too much chakra healing just one person, especially on the battle field.) For the nin to get up and back in the fight, especially slightly injured, their chakra had to be boosted.

Thus, soldier pills that boosted one's chakra. They had been invented during wartime when every single ninja that could be on the battlefield was needed to potentially turn the tide in their side's favor.

In Mist, these facts were drilled mercilessly into academy and genin, if someone was injured, you only healed it until it would need stitches and if someone was already in a deep puddle of blood, then they were told to either let them die, or mercy kill them. Which was why Rin was watching the med nin heal Lee with a raised eyebrow.

Because this med nin apparently decided to completely heal Lee. Rin grit her teeth as another piece of bone was shifted into place. She had refused painkillers because she hated being out of control of her own body. Another two pieces of bone were set, and when she returned her attention to her opponent, Lee was already sitting up and putting on his weights.

"How much do those things weigh, anyway?" Rin managed, almost biting her tongue- her collar bone had apparently been broken as well.

"Dunno, I stopped keeping track, but they aren't as much as Gai-sensei's." Lee got of his exam table, and Rin's eyes widened despite herself as he took her free hand in his- but she quickly tightened her grip. "How bad is it, Tanaka-san?"

"Bout's seven breaks in my forearm, and then my upper arm had about two and a fracture." She hissed.

"Not to mention your collar bone was broken in two places." The med nin added, slightly disapproving.

"Oh- it'll heal just fine, right?" Lee looked between them. He wasn't sure what had possessed him to take the mist gennin's hand, but the look of surprise and gratitude she had given told him that she had appreciated the gesture.

"It will take about three months or so before she's fully healed, but if she doesn't use it and listens to the healers she'll be fine." The med nin dismissed the concern.

"It's my left arm, it won't be too hard to not use it." Rin muttered. Pretty soon she was outfitted with a sling, and more instructions.

That was when the alarms- Shrilly signaling that something had gone wrong- went off.

Both gennin followed the mednins to find out was happening, and took a step onto a real battlefield.

* * *

In the stands, Neji and Shikamaru were trying to keep those still under the genjutsu from getting killed. They alternated between waking the others up and gurading them, but for the most part, they were ignored.

"Now what?" Ino demanded, supporting Tenten. She was answered by a blast of water hitting a sound nin as Rin and Lee joined them.

"I vote getting rid of these stragglers- almost everyone else is fighting outside the arena." Those fighting in the arena were a handful of chunin- all the others had been able to push the fight out of the arena.

"You're injured." Neji pointed out, byakugan activated.

"I'll use long range attacks, then."

"Split up." They all looked at Shikamaru. "Groups of two and three long range and short range, mendoksu . . ."

"Right." The group split up, and began to fight.

* * *

Iruka felt like throwing up. He could feel Kyuubi's chakra, and that of something similar. This was the moment he had secretly feared, that Naruto would lose control in battle and the Kyuubi would escape.

He kept his outward appearance as calm as he could, reassuring the students. But inside . . . he was terrified. He didn't want to lose Naruto, the kid was something like a little brother/son to him, he meant it when he said the kid wasn't a monster to him.

But the Kyuubi was still a real threat, something Iruka didn't understand, and it had destroyed half their village the last time it rampaged.

How much of a chance did a stubborn kid like Naruto have against something like that?

At the same time Iruka was panicking and fearing the worst, his optimistic side was stubbornly asserting that Naruto wouldn't lose to the fox, and trying to convince him he wasn't about to lose yet another family member.

When this was over, Iruka was going to find Naruto and yell at him for putting him through all this.

Elsewhere, Anko was colorfully cursing the sound nin, the mercenaries, idiots and her former sensei. Especially her former Sensei. She barely even acknowledged Ibiki as he covered her back.

* * *

"Orochimaru, why are you doing this?" Sarutobi demanded. For an answer, a giant snake lunged at him, but was halted by a large toad.

"Sorry I'm late. It took me a minute to find you." Jiraiya appeared at his Sensei's side, opposite Orochimaru. Not a moment too soon, as a large barrier surrounded the three men, separating them from everyone else. "Been a long time, Orochimaru."

"So it has, Jiraiya, tell me, are you still writing perverted fantasies?" Orochimaru gave a cold smile that almost gave them frostbite.

"SUPER-perverted fantasies, thank you very much." Sarutobi resisted the urge to face-palm. "But I think it's a much better pastime than experimenting on your fellow humans and biting little children."

"Ah, so Sasuke-kun's team told you what happened?"

"Why are you doing this, Orochimaru? What's the purpose of putting a poisonous seal on a child?" Sarutobi interrupted. "Don't tell me you're still chasing after immortality?"

"I've achieved it, I'm after jutsu now. I need the boy's eyes to achieve that goal."

"So why attack here? You could've just struck at anytime while the boy was on his own."

"Still so narrow-minded Jiraiya? You've been spying on me for how long, and you still want me to put the pieces together for you?" Jiraiya stiffened. He thought he had stayed out of his former teammate's knowledge. "I'll humor you both, for old times' sake." The giant snake he had summoned curled behind him and he leaned against it as he reached up to his face, and tore it off. Seeing their stunned expressions, he began to laugh.

Jiraiya felt like he was going to be physically ill. That face was too young to be Orochimaru's. In that moment, whatever tiny pinprick of hope he'd still had of ever seeing the old friend he remembered vanished.

The man in front of him had nothing left of that old friend, now there was just a monster. A monster he had failed to kill once before, but he would fail this time.

He owed that last service to the old friend he'd once had.

Next to him, Sarutobi felt similar thoughts run through his mind. It was time to correct the mistakes of the past.

Whatever the sacrifice that had to be made.

* * *

**To be continued in Part 2 . . . **


	11. Sacrificing Tomorrow, Part 2

**People keep reviewing and pointing out that even if the team becomes chunin, they could still continue to work together. That's true, I've never said they wouldn't. However, as they begin to specialize in different areas, they'll begin to spend less time together, and Kakashi, as a jounin, knows that they'll be sent on different missions with different people at some point, and then he won't be able to watch out for them.**

**Basically, Kakashi just wants to keep his 'pack' safe and where he can see them. It's a leftover instinct from when he was turned into a dog. There are a few other 'instincts' left over from that time, and I'm sure you all have spotted a couple.**

**I do have a method to my madness, and I kinda thought that was an obvious leftover from the previous story . . . guess not :} And now, the conclusion of the Invasion.**

* * *

**Sacrificing Tomorrow, Part 2**

Naruto let out a mix between a snarl and a strangled yelp as sand slammed into him, again, knocking him back, and almost completely unconscious. He blinked, staring at a huge cage for the second time.

'**Well, this is going rather pear-shaped, don't you think?**' The giant fox grinned down at him. '**I give you my chakra, like you asked, and you're still losing.**'

"Shut up! I'm not gonna lose!" Naruto snapped. The fox just snorted. "I don't see you suggesting anything useful."

'**Why would I? You just wanted my chakra, like rent, I believe were your words.**' The fox stretched and laid down.

"Because we're stuck together so we might as well work together, like . . . a partnership!" Naruto declared, the fox actually lost his grin for a moment and stared at the human.

'**A partnership? I'm a prisoner in your body, and you just want my chakra.**' The fox snorted.

"Hey! Because of you I've been an outcast and looked down on! I just need your chakra right now because of the other fuzzface in Gaara! I don't actually want it!" Naruto snapped back. The fox looked at him, slightly bemused. "I'll become a ninja on my own power! But right now, it's a two on one fight, and I need your help!" He paused for a half second. "Unless you want to have everyone hear how the Kyuubi lost to the Ichibi." Whatever response Naruto had expected, it hadn't been for the fox to burst out laughing.

'**You're amusing, for a human. Very well, I'll help you for this battle.**' The fox shifted, grin returning. '**Get in close enough to hit the human, don't worry about the sand, just aim your attacks at him.**'

"Right!" Naruto's eyes snapped open, the conversation had taken up almost no time in reality, and he renewed the attack aiming to hit Gaara.

Gaara's sanity was beginning to slip even further, a jumble of emotions from both host and the beast within, full of fear and the need to continue their survival and existence.

Sasuke and Sakura froze on the edge of the battlefield, the scorching heat from Kyuubi's chakra had caused the plants in the area to wither and die, while the sand had simply blasted chunks of the landscape bare.

"I don't think there's anything you can do here." Pakkun the pug offered, he was trembling and leaning against Sakura's leg. "In fact, I think you should run in the opposite direction."

Sakura's throat locked. Naruto was barely recognizable, and it scared her, to see his normal sky-blue eyes turned red and full of determined blood-lust. Suddenly, he let out a animalistic cry, and before their eyes, his skin burned off, as four tails waved behind him. In that form, he scored a deep gash on Gaara's shoulder, before the sand slammed him away and into the ground.

Sasuke was just as scared as Sakura. Naruto was someone that wore his emotions on his sleeve, who genuinely cared about others, no matter how badly they treated him. To see him like this, now . . . in some ways, it was worse than the massacre. When Naruto was knocked back and down, he did something that was probably really stupid.

During the month, while Naruto was learning the rasengan, Kakashi had also begun teaching Sasuke a technique of his own creation, the chidori.

There were a lot of dangers to both techniques, Kakashi had warned them. They were both advanced jutsu, and could easily damage the user if performed incorrectly, or used too many times in a short amount of time.

Sasuke didn't even realize he was moving until his fist of lightning slammed into the sand, freeing Naruto before the sand could bury him. As Sakura shouted a warning, he turned in time to see a fist made of sand heading straight for him. His hand ached, but he called up the chidori again, barely keeping back the sand even as the force made him slide back several feet. Then the sand was gone and Naruto was shoving Gaara away. Sasuke fell to his knees and grabbed his right arm. His hand ached so badly that he could barely even feel his fingers. His focus was on the battle now being pushed farther away from the village, he didn't even notice Pakkun or Sakura until the pug spoke.

"Kid, you've got a death wish." Pakkun informed him as Sakura looked at his injured arm. Sasuke was about to snap at the pug when suddenly the chakra and killing intent in the air increased to levels that made both gennin and the dog choke. A huge monster of sand roared into the air.

_What the hell . . . _Naruto was barely keeping his sanity as the fox flooded him with his chakra.

'**Okay, ningen, got a plan?**' The fox sounded amused, but there was a slight strain. '**Cause if you'd just break the seal, I could take care of this, no problem.**'

_No way, I'm not that gullible!_ Naruto snapped back.

'**Just saying, but I should let you know, you keep up like this, you're going to collapse, or even die.**' Naruto didn't respond. Gaara had done something to himself, he could still see the other in the forehead of the beast, but his eyes were closed. It was almost as if . . . he was asleep?

_If he's asleep, we need to wake him up._ Naruto announced, _We just need to get close . . . a good hit ought to do it._

'**And how do you plan on that?**' The fox asked. In response, he received an emotion that reminded him of a fierce grin and the thrill of a scheme that would catch the victim unawares. The fox couldn't help it, he grinned too.

* * *

Kakashi and the Kazekage both froze, along with the enemy nins that had attacked them, as the Ichibi roared at the sky.

"No . . ." Kakashi glanced at his companion. The Kazekage looked stricken. "We're too late, it's going to be next to impossible-" Another roar joined the Ichibi's and Kakashi's expression quickly matched the Kazekage's. A monster the color of dried blood, with a skeleton and six tails, and looked vaguely fox like . . . Kakashi's blood went cold. The enemy nins had run away in fright. The fox latched onto the sand beast, as both roared and wrestled. The fox slammed the sand tanuki down, and then slammed its head into the other's.

And just like that, the chakra of both beasts vanished.

"Naruto!" Kakashi rushed forward, Kazekage also snapping out of his horror in time to follow. Both were vaguely aware of four other chakra signatures heading towards the same destination.

* * *

Naruto gasped for breath, and shakily pulled himself up onto his elbows. Gaara laid nearby, bloodied and shaking. Gritting his teeth, Naruto pulled himself over to the red head.

"S-Stay away!" Gaara noticed, eyes going wide as Naruto finally stopped and reached out with one hand. Gaara flinched, but the hand just gently rested on his head.

"We're the same, y'know . . . we're both seen as monsters by other people. Cause they don't understand what it's like . . ." Naruto saw he had Gaara's complete attention. "But the thing is . . . we feel as much as they do, we desire the same things normal people do." Gaara felt his eyes start to burn as he stared into the brilliant blues eyes that were so . . . kind. Like his uncle's once were. "It's scary, being alone . . . but you can't let that stop you . . . I've got precious people, that love me despite everything . . . I'm sure . . . I'm sure if you looked and did your best, you'd find precious people that would do the same . . . cause you're not a monster." Gaara swallowed the lump in his throat.

"Say it again." The blonde blinked, and then smiled.

"You're not a monster." The burning sensation in Gaara's eyes turned out to be tears. Naruto's hand gently ruffled Gaara's bangs. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto. What's your name?"

"Gaara." He wanted to keep hearing that simple phrase, said with the full conviction that what was being said was true. Because Gaara didn't want to be a monster . . . he just wanted his existence to be acknowledge as worth something, maybe even to be loved. And the blond in front of him, Naruto, he knew what Gaara had never been able to say.

"You're not a monster, Gaara. You don't have to be one if you don't want to."

Gaara's siblings, the Kazekage, and the rest of team seven arrived in time to hear Naruto's words. Temari's eyes quickly became over bright with unshed tears. As she got a glimpse of Gaara's face. This was her little brother that had been missing for so long.

The Kazekage, on the other hand, was frozen. He had never seen his son in such a vulnerable position. Never seen him cut or bleeding. His brother-in-law's last words echoed in his mind, along with those of his wife.

"_I'll do it, but I'll never forgive you."_

"_He's so small. He needs protection."_

He'd never really looked at Gaara as a father looking at his son, just as a Kage looking at a weapon. It had been much easier, so much simpler. But now, as Gaara realized they were there and looked at them, he felt his heart clench.

_I'm so sorry, Karura, Yashamaru . . ._ Because he could see now what he'd missed before, what he'd refused to recognize . . . his son was scared of him. And, like any person that was scared and pushed too far, he lashed out to protect himself.

The Kazekage had seen it so many times in the last war . . . and yet he had missed it because he'd seen what he wanted to see. Yashamaru must be laughing at him right now. He didn't even want to think of his wife's reaction. A quick glance took in the state of the blond who was no longer able to push himself up or keep his hand on Gaara's head. Tired blue eyes, that were so eerily familiar, met his own and he could read the promise of pain if he hurt the redhead again. It was somewhat amusing, to see the expression on a gennin who couldn't even _move_, but the blond clearly meant it, and it was kind of . . . touching.

Wordlessly he moved forward, internally wincing at his son's flicker of fear as he approached. Gently, he copied the same motion that the blond had done, though instead he smoothed his son's red hair. "I'm sorry." Gaara's eyes widened in shock, and the Kazekage was aware of Hatake coming up to check on the blond. Just as gently, the Kazekage used a healing jutsu on the shoulder, noticing that it was already healing up. "I'm sorry, son."

"Otou-sama . . . I want to go home." The Kazekage scooped him up, not able to speak past the burning lump in his throat. He had made a mistake . . . but it looked like he had chance to fix it.

"We will." Kakashi was holding Naruto, the blonde looking ready to fall asleep. "Let's go, but be careful, we don't know how the battle's gone." The genin all nodded, and followed the adults back to Kohona.

* * *

It took everything Gai had not to slump against the wall. It had been a while since he'd been in a similar situation. The invaders had been driven back, but there were dead shinobi from both sides on the ground, and everyone had gotten spread out.

First things first, he had to find his gennin team. Neji and Tenten were easy to find, near a group of three enemy bodies. Both looked at him, and he almost collapsed to the ground to ask forgiveness.

This was not their first skirmish, or their first time seeing death, but it was on their home ground, their place of safety. People they knew had been attacked, and they didn't know if anyone was okay. Gai all too clearly remembered the first time he had felt the same- when the Kyuubi had attacked and he had gotten separated from his friends in the chaos.

It had taken months for him to stop running around, making sure everyone that had survived hadn't suddenly vanished on him.

"How are you doing?" Asking 'Are you alright?' in this situation was a question that could cause someone to snap, because nothing _was_ alright, the world as they knew it had just gotten shaken.

"We're okay, Sensei." Tenten answered as Neji nodded once.

"Where's Lee?" Both stiffened, and Gai felt . . . weary.

"He was with the mist girl, Rin, they moved in a different direction from us." Tenten explained. Neji was already looking around with his byakugan.

* * *

Hinata was shaking, still not quite recovered from her run in with Neji in the Forest of Death and the battle had not been kind to her still recovering body. But her hands were steady as she bandaged Shikamaru's arm, the lazy genius scowling at Ino who was scolding Chouji. Kiba and Shino came up, Kiba holding a very beat up Akamaru- not that he was much better. Kurenai and Asuma found them, and like Gai, focused on checking them over.

* * *

Ibiki looked at the water damage, the four drowned nins on dry land, and the several large impact craters that decorated the area, before he looked at the two genin, Rock Lee far more battered and bloodied than Tanaka Rin, who had gone pale from pain- her collarbone and arm had been re broken- as well as the strain of carrying most of Lee's weight. "Nice work, let's get you to the med nins." Ibiki's right arm had gotten burned- a katon jutsu he hadn't dodged completely- but he still picked up Lee. "Are you going to be able to follow, girl?"

" . . . I don't think so." Rin shook her head, almost falling to the ground. She was steadied by Shiranui Genma who'd come up.

"I've got you. Your Sensei and team are about to go out of their minds trying to find you." He'd lost his usual 'toothpick' at some point.

Everything was a mess, yet all those that were able had already begun picking themselves up and getting others to move as well.

* * *

"It's a good thing the building was evacuated." Chouza noted, as he, Inochi, Shikaku and Inuzuka Tsume studied the area where the Hokage had been battling. The building Chouza commented on now had a top floor that resembled firewood. Kuromaru barked and raced through the debris. The Clan heads followed, and quickly drew up short. The hokage was half buried under the rubble, and Jiraiya had already begun digging him out. The Toad Sannin looked like he'd been used as a punching bag, and his clothes were fairly torn up.

"What happened?" Inochi pulled Jiraiya away as Chouza began shifting the rubble under Shikaku's instruction. Tsume checked on the Hokage, more than a little relieved that he was still alive- unconscious, probably badly injured, but still alive.

"Orochimaru." Jiraiya shook his head. "He got away when the explosion occurred, I guess he decided to pull out just in case the Kyuubi and the other one decided to rampage on the village instead. Either that, or he got whatever it was he wanted." Inochi nodded, checking the older man for injuries. "What's the situation?"

"Don't know yet, we're still trying to find everyone to do a head count." A medical team arrived, and the Hokage was gently extracted from the rubble.

The worst part of a battle was never the actual battle itself, but the aftermath. That was when you discovered who was alive, who was injured, and who was never going to come back. It was when the realization of your comrade's death became real and you didn't have an enemy to focus on.

At the end of the Sound Invasion of Kohonagure, 25 civilians were dead, 12 critically injured and 40 had minor injuries of concussions or broken bones. Of the ninjas 35 of Kohona nins had perished, 64 were critically injured (with about 16 of them on the edge of joining the fatalities), and all except the chunin and gennin that didn't participate in the battle had minor injuries that included burns, mild poisoning and open gashes.

The Kazekage worked with the council, senior jounins and Anbu to keep things running smoothly while the Hokage was in surgery- it looked doubtful that he would ever walk again- and everyone began to work on getting through the days ahead.

**Okay, next up . . . Some recovery, lots of talks, and a few bonding moments.**

**Notes on this chapter: Let's see, THIS IS NOT A PAIRING FIC. I think I've mentioned it before, but just to reiterate, this is a character driven fic, so it will be going through the emotions that those characters feel, and not all love is romance (or sex). (The reason I'm making a point of saying this, is because some people would look at that scene with Gaara and Naruto talking and think it's romantic. I have nothing against same sex pairings in stories ****if they are well written**** but I'm a heterosexual girl, and my mind is fairly straight wired, so don't expect to see any slash, the most you're going to get is harmless teasing by friends. Not to mention, they're 12/13, they're not going to be really interested in anything but friendship.)**

**Gaara has been emotionally stunted and traumatized up to this point, and the only way people acknowledge him is through fear and hate. The one really loving relationship he had was his uncle, and I'm sure we all know what happened there. So for him, after being pushed to the edge by being treated like he shouldn't exist, that his existence means nothing and practically drowning with all that baggage, having someone, without any sort of fear, come up to him and say 'It's okay for you to exist, I'm not going to hate you' is going to be emotionally charged- especially since this person is Naruto and he means it. In a way, Naruto is Gaara's 'Iruka'- he's the first one to acknowledge him as Gaara the person, not the scary demon.**

**So, what's next? Well, Naruto pushed his limits working with the Kyuubi- since Naruto doesn't have the toad summoning contract yet, I had him go into the Kyuubi's six-tailed form. (From what I understand, that's pretty much the last form Naruto can take without the seal being in danger of breaking completely.) The reason he didn't lose control of himself was because Kyuubi was actually working ****with**** him (as opposed to the other times, when Kyuubi is pretty much waiting to take control the instant Naruto loses it) and the seal is still fairly strong, despite Orochimaru's tampering. So the consequences of that will come up next chapter. I finally have a name for the formerly Inner-Sakura.**

**The Hokage is alive, but badly injured, The Kazekage has finally realized his mistakes with Gaara, so there might be some Suna Family bonding next (sometimes it just takes a little thing to change someone's outlook) . . .**

**What else . . . oh, yeah, since I didn't kill off Sarutobi, someone else died. It's a character that I found kinda . . . pointless, I guess, despite the future role- What? I'm allowed to kill off the characters I want to kill off. It's not like any of you are actually going to miss this one.**

**Anyway, next chapter: Recovering Tomorrow: The First Step.**


	12. Recovering Tomorrow: The First Step

**Lots of information this chapter, some spoilers for the Kyuubi's sealing, Naruto's family, and current manga chapters. Not that they're all that obvious or detailed, like all the rest of the spoilers in my story, you should be able to read the manga (or watch the anime) without getting bored.**

**Remember, this is an Alternate Universe of what could have happened if the events of the previous story 'Dog's Life' had happened in the Naruto Verse. To that end, I am making a point of exploring character development, especially Kakashi and Sasuke, please note characters for this fic, and using things in the Naruto verse that are mentioned but never fully utilized.**

* * *

**Recovering Tomorrow: The First Step**

The Kyuubi no Kitsune ignored the bite-sized blond on the other side of his prison's bars. He had his eyes closed and was trying to go back to sleep. Using his power after being dormant so long had been exhausting, and he was still using it to fix the human's body.

"Oi, I'm trying to talk to you!" So much for sleep.

'**Ningen, I don't want to talk to you, I helped in the battle liked you asked, and I'll give you my chakra at times when you might need it, but I am not talking to you.**' And so much for ignoring the blond.

"Why not?" The giant fox cracked open one eye and gave the blond an annoyed glare. It didn't even faze him. "Seriously, why not?"

'**Because I don't **_**like**_** humans, Ningen-gaki.**' If he answered, maybe the brat would leave quicker. Naruto just crossed his arms and stared at him. '**What, I have to have a better reason?**'

"Apparently, I'm in a coma, and you've been sleeping for the past, 12 years? Don't you want to know what's been going on?"

'**No, but I'm sure you'll tell me anyway.**' The fox grumbled, Naruto grinned at him. '**Knock it off, Ningen, I'm a captive audience- literally.**' The fox gave a soft sigh as the human began to inform him of every single detail of his life. '**I hope this coma ends soon.**'

* * *

"Is he going to be okay?" Sakura looked up at Kakashi as she gently gripped her unconscious teammate's hand.

"He pushed his body fairly hard, but he'll make a full recovery- he'll probably wake up once he's well rested, and that might take a few days." Kakashi assured her. Sasuke entered the room, right arm in a sling and a slight scowl on his face.

"How is he?" Kakashi repeated what he had just said, and Sasuke nodded. "Good, then I call dibs on being the first to beat him into the ground, the idiot . . ."

* * *

In another hospital room, the Kazekage quietly listened to his children talk. It was going to be difficult, they had already made the first steps towards reconciliation with each other, but they still had years of mistakes, mistrust and hate between them. Truthfully, the Kazekage was dreading the day he'd have to tell Gaara the truth about his uncle . . . he took a deep breath. He would focus on one day at a time. He couldn't afford to get ahead of himself with this. And as much as it chafed his pride, before they left, he would have to have a talk with Uzumaki Naruto . . . and thank him for bringing his son back from the edge that the Kazekage had pushed him to.

* * *

Jiraiya was wishing he had hidden himself with the council members had called his name. How many times did he tell them he didn't want to be hokage? He didn't even want to be 'acting' hokage, and no he was not going to change his mind. Sarutobi was still alive, and being hokage was mostly deskwork right now.

* * *

It took roughly a week for some semblance of the normal order to finally be reached. The Hokage had finally woken after four days of sleep, and had not been amused by the amount of paperwork left for him. However, there was one thing he had to do, that was much more important than his Hokage duties.

"Kohonamaru . . . There's nothing I can say that will make you feel better. I have seen many people die in my lifetime, and have come to learn that just saying 'it will be alright' or 'he died doing his duty' are hollow comforts." Sarutobi held his grandson as the young boy sobbed. "It's okay to grieve for Ebisu."

* * *

"You're leaving already?" Lee looked at Rin, who's arm was in a sling and was currently leaning on a crutch. He was in a hospital bed, still waiting to be discharged.

"I can recover in Kirigakure just fine, and I'm well enough to travel." She shrugged. "I just wanted to ask for a rematch, someday."

"Yosh! I would be most un-youthful to refuse such a request!" Rin blinked at the outburst, and then gave a wry smile.

"Just don't go getting killed before then, idiot." Lee just beamed. During the fight, he had taken a hit meant for the mist girl, and had gotten quite an earful 'for being a foolish idiot who should know better than that'. Mist nins didn't sacrifice themselves for each other, she had later explained. Doing so was an insult to the person being saved, because it assumed that they weren't strong enough to save themselves. It was also considered a selfish move, especially between friends, as it forced someone to live with the knowledge and guilt that their friend had died for them. Dying on the battlefield, no matter how, was a mark of honor, and thus mist nins would prefer that to being saved. 'And,' she had added with a scowl, 'I now owe you my life, meaning I have to repay you at some point.'

Lee didn't apologize, he wasn't _ever_ going to apologize for his actions in protecting a comrade-in-arms, but he got the feeling that Rin actually approved of his lack of apology.

* * *

'**Damnit, when is he going to wake up!**' The alternate personality that still lacked a name grumbled. Sakura ignored her in favor of placing the flowers by his bed. Ino had helped, getting her pink, orange and yellow roses- all symbolizing friendship and gratitude, among other things.

_I have a name for you._ The personality quieted for a minute, curious. _You'll be Rose, a beautiful flower with thorns._ For a moment the personality didn't speak.

'**Well, it's better than nothing, still a little girly, but I can make it work!**' 'Rose' declared. Sakura smiled.

* * *

'**Ningen, would you just ****try**** to wake up?**' The fox growled, slamming against the bars. '**While your pranks are worthy of a kitsune, I want to go back to sleep!**' Naruto blinked as the large fox glared at him. '**Don't you have friends you can annoy?**'

"Well, yeah, but you can talk." The Kyuubi stared at the human. "You can talk, you can obviously think, you aren't just a mindless beast, cause you've even laughed."

'**Your point?**'

"Well, I just . . . thought you'd be lonely, sealed away with nothing to do but sleep and give me chakra when we're in danger of getting killed." If the Kyuubi had been human, he would have been gaping. "And . . . do you have a name? My name's Uzumaki Naruto . . .if you don't I could name you, or get Sakura to do it."

' **. . .**' His previous two containers had never asked his name, had never cared much about him except for use of his chakra. The fox shifted, unsure. '**I do have a name, but even if I tell you, learning someone's name does not make you their friend.**'

"Well, duh, we technically just met." Naruto nodded. "But it's a start isn't it? And even rivals and enemies know each other's names too."

It must be the product of having to listen to the brat for several days, but the Kyuubi felt a little pleased. Or maybe it was heartburn. Besides, if he didn't give the brat his name, he would be continued to be called 'Fuzzball' and 'Fuzzface' and those were definitely not dignified. 'Demon Fox' and 'Kyuubi' weren't too bad, though.

'**If I tell you, would you stop calling me Fuzzball or Furry-face?**'

"Sure, but you got to call me by my name, too! I promise I'll stop calling you anything other than your name!" Naruto made the motion of crossing his heart.

'**My name is Kurama, Naruto.**' It was very awkward to say the brat's name, but the fox-like grin on the other's face caused yet another sensation of heartburn.

"Kurama, pleased to meet you!"

The fox snorted. '**The pleasure is entirely yours, now will you wake up? Your skulk is getting anxious.**'

"Huh?"

' **. . . Skulk, what you would call a pack, team, whatever!**' Kurama huffed.

"Oh, okay, have a nice nap, Kurama!"

'**Don't wake me unless it's a matter of life or death, Naruto.**' And once again, Kurama almost choked on the name. He ignored whatever reply the brat gave and settled down for a nap.

You don't become someone's friend just by learning their name, or by wishing you were friends. It takes time and effort. Naruto and the Kyuubi weren't friends, but they had reached an agreement- they were stuck together, no matter how much they wished otherwise- and would put up with each other's presence. Neither actually trusted the other- Naruto knew that Kurama would break the seal and take over in a heartbeat if the fox got the chance, and Kurama wasn't going to believe that Naruto would hold to any promise he gave- but there was a truce, sealed with the formal exchange of names. For how long, neither of them knew.

* * *

Naruto woke to the familiar white ceiling of the hospital, and promptly let out a groan.

"Naruto? Are you in pain?" Kakashi almost threw his book in his haste to put it down so he could look at Naruto.

"No, Kakashi-sensei . . . I'm in the hospital again?"

"You've been out for about a week, you put a great strain on your body by letting the Kyuubi out so much." Kakashi explained, helping him sit up. "What were you thinking?"

"That Kurama would be able to help, and he did."

" . . . Naruto, who's Kurama?" Kakashi frowned.

"Oh! That's the Kyuubi's name."

"It has a name- wait, it can _talk_?" Iruka blinked as he entered the room. He was carrying take-out for Kakashi.

"Yep, and he's a he." Iruka could only stare at Naruto. He didn't know what he was supposed to be feeling, but concern was definitely in the fore-front of his thoughts.

"Naruto, be careful-"

"I know- I'm not gonna do something stupid like let him loose, Iruka-sensei!" Naruto quickly added. "But that fight was the first time we ever spoke, and I was curious so I wanted to see if he had a name, since he can talk and all. I guess I lost track of time."

"I see . . ." Iruka clearly didn't see, but Kakashi stepped in at that point.

"So what's Kurama-san like?"

" . . . He doesn't like humans all that much, he especially hates being sealed away- did you know I'm his third container? Apparently, the previous two never really talked to him." Naruto frowned, remembering the Fox's grumble about how his previous two containers didn't bother him by talking. "He thought some of my pranks were funny, and he thinks I should start practicing stealth and more underhanded tactics- well, he said I was too loud and obnoxious too last long as a ninja." Naruto amended. "He also doesn't want me using his chakra unless it's life or death. He doesn't like being used as a weapon very much." Naruto shrugged. "That's all, he didn't really want to talk to me, I think he just gave me his name so I'd leave him alone. He's gone back to sleep." Naruto then realized what he was saying. "Err, is that a bad thing?" He glanced warily between Kakashi and Iruka, almost flinching back.

"No. It's not." Kakashi ruffled his hair. "Sakura's finally got a name for her alternate personality, anyway, she would have wanted to name the fox if he didn't have one."

Iruka pushed his emotions aside for a minute. That startled, about-to-shatter look was still in Naruto's eyes, and it brought back memories of Mizuki and Naruto's fear and pain when he learned why he was so hated. The look was the exact same. Iruka moved forward, and grabbed Naruto in a gentle hug. "You're still you, Naruto. But, please, just be careful dealing with the Kyuubi." Naruto relaxed, and Iruka moved to sit on the bed.

"I promise." Kakashi gave an eye smile.

Iruka blinked, something the Copy-nin had said finally registering. "Wait, since when does Sakura have an alternate personality- and why the heck did she name it?" In about a flash, Iruka had gone from his easy going-nature to mother-hen. "Hatake!"

"It wasn't my fault!"

* * *

Sasuke yelped as one of the files that his father had haphazardly thrown into the bureau in his parents room landed on his foot. Thankfully, no one heard him, because Uchiha's did not yelp. With Naruto in the hospital, Kakashi-sensei busy helping with the clean up, and Sakura with her mother, he had been left alone in his family's estate. With nothing better to do, he had started to clean the second room he had been avoiding. With a sigh, he picked up the very thick file and looked at the title.

And then did a double take.

"Why would Dad have a file on Naruto?" He sat down on his parent's bed, and after a moment of indecision, began to go through it, occasionally muttering words allowed. The first page had a basic summary of the events of October 10, and he'd already known most of it from Kakashi sensei . . . "Previous Container . . . _Mother _Uzumaki Kushina . . . Uzumaki _clan_ . . . fuuinjutsu . . . Whirlpool Country . . ." There were two pictures of Uzumaki Kushina, one with the woman smiling broadly at the camera, the other with her smiling, one hand on a swollen stomach and sitting with his mother, just as pregnant. There was nothing on Naruto's father, other than a quick note of 'I can't believe it, but he was always an idiot like that' in one of the margins. "Whirlpool country was destroyed and the clan scattered, but Naruto could have family . . ." Naruto needed to know this. He deserved to know this. Sasuke couldn't imagine how he'd lasted without knowing anything of his parents, he couldn't imagine _Naruto_ giving up when faced with a mystery, given how curious the other boy could be. Then again, Naruto wasn't one to dwell on something that was painful, he'd probably forced himself to keep going and leave his parents a mystery, never even looking back.

Unlike Sasuke, who was still dwelling on the massacre and constantly looking back. Sasuke gave a bitter smile, but collected the file together. He would show this to Naruto. If Uzumaki were supposed to be seal masters, then Naruto had a hidden talent just waiting to be unleashed.

When he arrived, Sakura was telling Naruto about her alternate personality, and its new name. Kakashi was 'reading' his book, but clearly paying attention.

"Sasuke!" Naruto grinned at him. "Are you okay? Sakura said you used that technique twice when you weren't supposed to."

"Yeah, I just have to wait for my arm to finish healing, it's just in a sling so I remember not to use it. When are you getting out, Dobe?"

"Tomorrow." Sasuke nodded, closed the door, and sat on the bed, pushing the file over to Naruto. "What's this?"

"I found it with a bunch of my dad's files. They're old profiles he kept, but this one caught my eye . . . I went through it." Kakashi straightened, putting away his book. "Naruto . . . it has the name of your mother, her clan . . . and that she was the previous Kyuubi vessel."

"My . . . mom?" Sasuke opened the file, and showed him the two pictures. "Uzumaki Kushina . . ." Naruto was speechless, staring at the woman who clearly was happy to be having a child.

"She's beautiful." Sakura murmured.

"That she was." Kakashi attracted their attention as he came to look at the file.

"Sensei, did you know her?" Naruto was still unable to speak, clutching the picture of his mother tightly, so Sasuke did it for him.

"Not as well as I could have, we knew each other in passing." There had been a war, and it had been rare for either of them to be in Kohona at the same time. He had known his sensei's love for her, the fact that Naruto was going to be born, but the two had never officially been married, that he knew of. If they had, she hadn't changed her name. "She was a regular spitfire, had a temper that could frighten anyone into submission, but she could also be gentle and kind." He remembered red hair, and the ability to make everyone look at her. "She was very fun loving, could pull everyone's attention to her by just entering a room."

"What about Naruto's dad?"

"The file doesn't say, Sensei, do you-"

"Yes. But I can't say." Kakashi sighed, ruffling Naruto's hair a little. "You have to understand, everything that happened on the night Kyuubi attacked that regarded Naruto was forbidden of being mentioned, and all records were sealed. That included his parentage. Your father was the head of the police force at that point, Sasuke, he shouldn't have kept this file."

"But Naruto deserves to know he has family!" Sasuke couldn't help it. "He has a _clan_, it's been scattered, but it has a _specialty_ that he can learn!"

"I'm not saying that you've done anything wrong, Sasuke, I'm just saying why I can't tell Naruto who his father was, or why no one ever told him about his family. As it is, I'm going to have to report this to the Hokage." Kakashi sighed, he kept his hand on Naruto's shoulder as he explained. "The Uzumaki clan was scattered, as were their records, I do know that Uzumaki-san was an only child. However . . . no one can scold me for telling you about the clan, it's part of our history, though its seldom mentioned, I only know it cause my sensei told me." He explained the alliance between the Uzumaki Clan of whirlpool and the 1st Hokage, as well as the spiral symbol on the hiate-ate and flak vests they wore. Sakura was fascinated, Sasuke was absently tracing the spiral part of the leaf on his hiate-ate, and Naruto . . . Naruto wasn't paying attention at all.

His focus was on the pictures of his mother, of the woman he'd never gotten to meet. She was beautiful, her long hair past her waist practically shone red and her bangs were clipped with a simple barrette to keep it out of her eyes.

He had often wondered what his parents had looked like when he was little, had spent hours trying to figure out what parts came from his dad and which were his mother's. He looked at the simple page of notes that summarized the findings of Sasuke's dad. "My mom was the Kyuubi's container before me?" He finally managed.

"That I'm not a hundred percent sure about. But it would make sense. The Kyuubi's seal, no matter the type, would have to weaken in times of great stress so it would be easier to access the chakra. I imagine given birth would put a lot of stress on your mother, enough to weaken the seal. The Kyuubi might have taken that opportunity to break out. When seals are forcibly broken instead of removed, they can cause a lot of damage, and can even rebound and kill someone." Kakashi saw Naruto shift. "It wasn't your fault, Naruto, your mother would have known the risks when she conceived you, as the file points out, seals were the Uzumaki clan specialty. She must have wanted to have a child badly enough that she was willing to take that risk."

"My mom . . . wanted me . . ." Naruto had lived with the fear that his parents had simply not wanted him, and that was why he got picked. There had been a thousand stories he had come up with over the years, whenever he thought of his parents, some ludicrous and pure fantasy, he could admit, others quite possible, especially given Iruka-sensei's story- his parents had died with the others trying to take out the Kyuubi was the simplest story that he had always just kept. He hadn't really thought of looking for family- there was always the possibility of his name being made up- he had been so focused on getting anyone to pay attention to him. Naruto blinked as he realized Sakura was hugging him, Sasuke had his good arm around his back, and Kakashi-sensei just had a hand resting on the blond's head. "My mom wanted me . . . she . . . loved me." It took a second to realize his vision had blurred with tears. He was torn between joy and an aching sadness . . . his mother had _loved_ him.

* * *

In the Hyuuga compound, Neji was staring out the window, still reeling from the talk he had had with his uncle. His uncle hadn't wanted his father to die, had tried to give himself up as per the agreement instead of giving the order. His dad hadn't let him. His dad had chosen to die. "Everyone makes their own choices." He muttered to the air. Uzumaki had been right. Now, Neji was going to have to change his way of thinking. He had that option to change- he was going to take it.

* * *

**Phew. Okay, Notes on this chapter (Warning, they're going to be fairly long, but I promise they're interesting, and in your interest to read, as they explain a few things.)**

**Naruto has pretty much harassed Kyuubi into giving his name, but they're not actually friends, or even allies, at this point. They've just got the working promise of staying alive. Why have Naruto bother Kyuubi? Well, it's really the first time they've 'met' and Naruto is curious. The fox can talk to him, and if the fox can talk, then he must have a name or something he would prefer to be called. (more than one story on this site uses this idea of Naruto and Kyuubi meeting and exchanging names, of course, most are from before the Kyuubi's name was actually revealed, so there a several different kyuubi names (and genders, on that note)) Also, Naruto's pretty empathetic to others, and despite the fox's attitude, the fox has still been locked away for several years, and we all know how much Naruto loves getting to know his enemies/rivals/potentialfriends. (Gee, let's see- Sasuke, Zabuza, Haku, Gaara so far, and more than a few in shippuden too.)**

**Not much on the Suna group, but I wasn't sure what to do- they've got years of hurt that they're going to have to go through before they can really call each other family, espescally for the Kazekage and Gaara. (suggestions for this would be welcome.)**

**Yes, I've killed off Ebisu (Kohonamaru's tutor and eventually jounin instructor). Why? Well, one I didn't care much for his character, I mean, a jounin who's specialty is 'chakra control' isn't really useful unless he's also a med nin or genjutsu specialist (hence his death in the invasion). That, and I think it's ridiculous to have Kohonamaru paired with the same Jounin for most of his life, for both student and teacher. (On the upside, Kohonamaru got to keep his grandfather, so it's a fair trade, don't you think?)**

**Rin and Lee- no, I will not make them a couple, however tempting or friendly the two get. They're going to have a fairly friendly rivalry, and Rin's slightly cold-blooded view of the battlefield is going to be a foil for Lee's in the future. (Trust me, it will be important)**

**Also, as some of you might remember (and will undoubtably point out in a review), Rin showed interest in Sakura as a rival, though the two never got a chance to fight or actually meet again. This was done intentionally. Remember, Kakashi said that it was rare for rivals from different villages to actually encounter each other beyond the first meeting, instead, they usually keep up with each other via Bingo book and intelligence reports. Rin's going to continue to keep an interest in Sakura, and Sakura is going to keep an eye on Rin, mostly because it's better to know who the person keeping an eye on you is, than out of any real sense of rivalry.**

**Next- Sakura's inner personality, now turned alternate personality is going to be called 'Rose' from now on. The suggestion came in from 'anonymous', and after a while of thinking, I agreed- there are pink roses, and rose thorns hurt. And as 'Rose' said, it's a little girly for the tomboy personality, but it'll work just fine. (I promise, I'll put that in the beginning of the chapters from now on, so people won't get confused or forget.)**

**Iruka's reaction- that will be covered in the next chapter, but remember, as much as he loves Naruto, he's not going to be too happy with Naruto speaking with the fox that killed his parents. It's going to take some time for him to get completely over it.**

**Sasuke's discovery: I refuse to believe that no one figured out what was going on. More than likely, the records were all sealed and forgotten about as everyone re-built and got on with their lives- wondering about the 'demon kid's' family was not a high priority, and with the law, who would bother. However, The Uchiha clan was in charge of the police force, and I'm sure Sasuke's dad would keep a file on a possible 'threat' like the Kyuubi. Sasuke's mom and Kushina knew each other, we see that in the flashback of what happened to her. So, it's reasonable to believe that Sasuke's dad had a hidden stash of files on security threats that no one found or bothered to try and find (Why sasuke found them will be covered later)**

**Kushina Uzumaki- it's quite possible that either a) she didn't marry the yondaime, even though they had a relationship, or b) she never changed her name despite being legally married. There's not enough information to know, and given that the yondaime had a lot of enemies, they probably wouldn't have advertised how serious it was as a precaution. Adding a child on top of that would have also been pretty dangerous at that point, the war might have wound down, but I doubt it was completely peaceful.**

**Uzumaki clan- their specialty 'fuuinjutsu' is seals of all kinds. From what I understand of clans, all of those with their bloodline have that specialty leaning, along with large chakra reserves. Also, the Yondaime Hokage was a seal expert/master as well, so Naruto would get that talent from both sides. However, NO ONE EVER MENTIONS IT. Jiraiya might have during the two year timeskip, but Naruto's only ever been focused on ninjutsu. In fact, everyone focuses on Naruto's Ninjutsu and the Kyuubi. With all the things that we're told seals can do in the manga, well, let's just say I'm going to be adding this to Naruto's repertoire of 'techniques used in unusual ways'.**

**Sasuke's reaction: His clan has been killed, but he remembers all the good things about having a clan (from what I can tell, he was the last child born, and so would probably have been doted upon by the elders of the clan). The fact Naruto might have a clan/family member(s) he could meet is something that Sasuke can't have, but Naruto **_**can**_**. You can be assured Sasuke's not going to let this go.**

**Neji- Well, I had to put him in somewhere, and it fit with the overall mood.**

**So . . . Next chapter . . . Recovering Tomorrow: Organization- Paper work has to be filed, the damage has to recorded and prioritized, Ninjas have to be allowed missions according to their health and promotions have to be made- Ah! Who makes Chunin? Find out next time!**

**(*Chuckles*, what, you didn't think I was going to leave without a tiny cliffhanger?)**


	13. Recovering Tomorrow: Organization

**Remember- 'Rose' is the name of Inner Sakura, now that it's a separate personality.**

**Recovering Tomorrow: Organization**

Iruka sighed as he went through the documents on his desk. Several of his students had family injured, and more than a couple had lost a family member. About half were staying home, grieving or trying to reassure their parents that yes they still wanted to be ninja, and there were quite possibly a few that were getting ready to drop out of the academy, for whatever reason. Of those that had returned, some were just there to have something to do and it showed with poor attention spans. However, there were some that were studying harder and practicing more. Top of that list were Kohonamaru and his two best friends.

Iruka set down the papers and looked out the window. Naruto had talked to the Kyuubi no Kitsune, had found out that the monster had a name and generally seemed okay with having a homicidal fox stuck in him. He shouldn't be as surprised as he was about the last- Naruto never did the normal reactions that everyone else had.

He couldn't hurt Naruto, even if he was still angry at the fox. And pulling away would hurt him. Iruka sighed. He had to get his reactions under control before he hurt his favorite student.

* * *

"Whoa!" Sakura blinked as she stared at the ground, which was suddenly very close, and then up at the person who'd caught her. "Sakura, what are you doing here?" the 'still' went unsaid. (Kakashi had just come by to drop off a book about sealing basics that he thought Naruto would like to look at.)

"Um, I'm volunteering sensei, with Naruto-kun and Sasuke-kun on leave and you helping with security, I thought I'd volunteer at the hospital for a bit."

"You're dead on your feet." Kakashi frowned, as his female student blushed and tried to avoid his gaze. "Sakura, why haven't you gone home?"

" . . . Rose might've slipped out when I was tired, and told my mother off." Sakura admitted, knowing better than to lie at this point- she was too tired to come up with something convincing, anyway.

'**Tch, She had it coming.**' Rose dismissed.

_She's our mother! You don't tell your mother that she's an overbearing hag! Even when it's the truth! _Sakura snapped back.

"And you've been avoiding going home, since?"

" . . . Can we talk somewhere else?"

"Alright." In an instant, they were on the hokage monument. "Well?"

"Villagers aren't happy about seeing Kurama again, some are asking for Naruto's blood."

"I know." That's what he, and several jounins who had been impressed with Naruto's performance, had been working on. For the most part, it was working.

"My mother is one of them." Ah, that would do it.

For the most part, civilians were accepting of the shinobi among them, especially when it was family. They would never understand, but they would be proud to even have some that had been trained in the academy and never made it to genin.

Then you had those like Haruno-san, who would have been much happier if Sakura had only gone through the academy, then returned to civilian life. Sometimes they were able to mend the cracks that the stress would put between them . . . other times . . . the resentment was far too much. Cracks became canyons, and everyone was hurt.

"And the volunteering at the hospital?" Kakashi asked.

" . . . In the forest, both Naruto and Sasuke were hurt." She hugged her knees. "I . . . It could have been so much worse, and I couldn't do a thing. I . . . I want to be able to heal them." Kakashi gently wrapped an arm around her.

For ninja without ambition, it always took a disastrous mission to highlight their weakness, to show them something to work for other than simple missions. For him, it had taken the death of his friend to realize that he couldn't just stand on his own all the time, that he needed to work on his teamwork.

For Sakura, the two problems were related. Coming from a civilian family, she didn't have the ambition most clans and ninja families' had to be the best. As a result, she was fairly well rounded, but there was nothing in the basics that she excelled at. She had the control for ninjutsu and skill for genjutsu, had stamina for taijutsu (she had winded him when she'd thrown a punch), and pretty average with weapons. She could quickly read and memorize information, so her intelligence gathering skills were good enough for your basic chunin, but the odds were that ninja like that rarely made it to jounin.

Medical jutsu was pretty difficult, and only the really determined ever learnt it. He hadn't suggested it to her, because he had discovered all too quickly how far his genin would go for him, and he especially didn't want them to do something that would make them unhappy just to please him. That, and some days Sakura was too much like Rin, and he didn't want to confuse the two by training Sakura to be like his old teammate.

He had taught them all basic first aid, but none of the jutsu- he really should have, now that he thought about it, but it was a bit late in coming.

"If you're serious about learning, I have some of the basic scrolls and books at my place. I can loan them to you to read." Sakura looked up at him, eagerly. "Also . . . this might help you make up with your mother, at least to keep her off your back about becoming a civilian."

"Really? How?" Sakura looked at him eagerly.

"Med nins aren't in as much danger of getting hurt on missions, they usually hang back so that they can heal whoever gets hurt. They're also fairly respected, and aren't often sent out on missions. It won't change your mother's opinion of Naruto, of course, but I think that will just take some time."

"And a bloody miracle." Kakashi raised an eyebrow.

"Rose?"

"Oops, sorry." The personality's switched back. Sakura then blushed. "Sorry, Sensei, I think I'm a little dizzy."

* * *

The Sandaime sighed. To tell the truth, the last round of the final exams was more for politics than the selection of chunin. Actually, the entire thing was political, and while it did find those that were chunin material and gave them a chance to shine, the promotion to chunin was done entirely by the villages themselves, based on the performance. There were other, less political, chunin exams held in the separate villages without outsiders to see, and these were held far more frequently, but the once a year multiple village chunin exams were the chance for the villages to show off their most promising rookies.

Still, the final decision for Kohona's entrants was in the hands of the examiners, and the Hokage. Who were currently meeting in the hospital room turned office to discuss the results.

"Hyuuga Neji?"

"Did alright on my exam." Ibiki shrugged.

"He went after a team he knew didn't have the necessary scroll and put one of them in a hospital. They were allies as well." Anko snorted, "He's got a chip on his shoulder that needs to be knocked off before he can do anything."

"He was so focused on beating the Nara, he didn't think about the other's abilities. He moved straight into the Nara's technique." Hayate agreed with a cough. "I don't think we should pass him, he'd be a liability on the field."

"Agreed." Sarutobi nodded. "Nara Shikamaru."

"Smart kid, used his shadow technique to help his Akimichi teammate to answer the test."

"From surveillance, we know he was the one to plan the ambush that got his team's scroll. He's a smart one, if a little lazy." Anko finally gave into temptation and grabbed the dango that had been taunting her the entire discussion.

"He's aware of his limits, and plans accordingly, he'd make a good team leader, he wouldn't gamble with his teammate's lives." Hayate agreed.

In the exams, there was more than one way to win, especially in the final rounds. You didn't just win by trashing your opponent, you could also win by using your discretion- something that was crucial to ninja in the field. If you couldn't win for certain, then it was better to cut your losses and escape to fight another day. It was a hard lesson for most ninja to learn, but Shikamaru had shown he was aware of his limits. In a taijutsu fight, Neji would have won.

"Then he will be promoted- Rock Lee?"

"He won, and the girl was right." Hayate gave a slight cough. "Had it been a real fight to the death, he would have not held back and killed her. That he did was a testament to the control."

"He doesn't have access to chakra though." Ibiki pointed out.

"Your point?" Anko raised an eyebrow. "I think he did good, and he'll be an excellent heavy hitter for missions and teams requiring brute force."

"Just pointing it out." Ibiki shrugged. "Your call Hokage-sama?"

"I'd promote him."

"Uzumaki?"

Anko burst out laughing. Ibiki rolled his eyes.

"He got people to follow his lead, and was able to gather information without much difficulty- I'm pretty sure he might have set up another to take the fall for his cheating, too." Ibiki admitted.

"He did well in the forest, the only reason he and his group didn't make it was they ran into that traitor-bastard." Anko pointed out. "I like his spunk, too." She grinned, munching on her dango.

"His last match was technically interrupted, but that was another jinchurriki he was fighting. He kept control and pushed the other away from those that couldn't protect themselves." Hayate offered with another cough. That attracted their attention. "When Gaara went out of control, the sand tried to grab me. Naruto got in between the sand and me, the fox's chakra pushing the sand away. He was the one that shoved Gaara out of the arena." Hayate dissolved into a violent coughing fit, Anko, in a rare moment of compassion, rubbed his back.

"Mm, and there's something else." Sarutobi spoke up once Hayate could finally breath again. All three looked at him. "The Kazekage requested he be promoted." Not exactly in those words, but Sarutobi had seen past the comments the other Kage had made. "Naruto impressed him. And I think he will continue to do so, to everyone."

* * *

Sasuke was staring at the page in front of him, scowling. He had gone through his father's private files after finding the file on Naruto, and things just weren't adding up. There were files on Kohona's defenses, the hokage tower, a man named Danzou, several people on the village council, the Sannin, and one on his brother, which he had quickly looked at.

What he had found was far more confusing. His father hadn't trusted Itachi, implying that he wasn't loyal to the clan, but to some other party that his father didn't like. He had Shisui following his brother, with orders to kill him if he completely betrayed the clan.

"I don't get it . . . Otou-san, what were you thinking?" Sasuke sighed, and then replaced all the files back in their hiding spot. Some parts of the file were coded, and Sasuke had no idea how to break the code down just yet.

His father had wanted Itachi dead. Was that why Itachi had killed Shisui- self-defense? Or had Shisui actually committed suicide with Itachi's help, instead of betraying his friend? There were far too many questions, and the only one that could answer them was who-knows where.

But it looked like Kakashi was right- there had clearly been a lot of tension he had missed as a child.

* * *

The Kazekage looked in at the blond, who was studying the book infront of him with fascination. He raised an eyebrow when the blond's head jerked up and looked at him.

"May I come in?" The blond nodded warily, and the kazekage wanted to sigh at how blatant the boy's emotions were. Though they were very amusing. "You know who I am, correct?"

"You're Gaara's dad." Uzumaki nodded, still wary but more and more curious. "Kazekage, right?"

"Yes, I am."And before he lost his nerve, the Kazekage gave a slight bow from the waist. "Thank you for stopping Gaara."

"Eh? It wasn't-" The Kazekage refrained from chuckling at Uzumaki's confusion. The boy had clearly never been formally thanked before, and his confusion was so open and emotions genuine . . . it was very different from most ninja, who kept themselves either blank or hid their true emotions with others.

It was quite refreshing, actually.

The next day, with Naruto finally discharged from the hospital, the Suna nins were ready to depart. Sarutobi had insisted on seeing them off, though he reluctantly used the wheelchair provided. Midway through the formal exchange of good-byes, both Kages' attentions were caught by an exchange happening just on the fringe. When the kages stopped to pay attention, everyone else did as well.

Naruto was lowering his fist, slightly embarrassed as he explained something that they couldn't hear to Gaara. Gaara tilted his head, and then used his sand to grab the blonde's wrist (an action that startled almost everyone), keeping it from lowering, as he gently bumped fists with the other. Naruto grinned as Gaara offered a small hesitant smile.

"Let's meet again, dattebayo!" Gaara nodded, and the Kazekage looked at the Hokage.

"Suddenly, Hokage, I am sure the future is going to be interesting."

"As am I, Kazekage, as am I." And with that, the Suna nins departed.

During the next few days, news of the promotions spread like wildfire. There were mixed emotions with the news of one new chunin in particular, but for the most part . . . something had changed.

Of course, this was the calm before the storm- miles away, two nin were rapidly approaching Kohona, as a certain Otokage licked his wounds and made plans.

**Hmm, no particular notes this time- looked back at the last chapter and realized it was a little choppy- I blame the fact that I started and stopped a heck of a lot, and so the flow wasn't so good. I'll try to fix it at some point, I promise.**

**Next up . . . some training, a mission (or two) and Team 7 gets another shock regarding Naruto. Chapter Title: Recognizing Tomorrow! (And just so you know, it might be a month before I can post again. The next chapter is going to much longer to make up for it, though, so just bear with me?)**

**(This isn't related to the story, but I'm thinking that after this story is finished, I'm going to mess around with another popular Naruto cliché- Time Travel AU. It's been done several times before, but I have two ideas that I think are rather unique and that I really want to try. Like Dog's Life and Tomorrow, they'd be character based fics, exploring quite a few ideas I've had over the years. Let me know if you think this is a good idea, kay? I don't want to post a story no one will read.)**


	14. Tomorrow's Plans

**Hi! *Dodges Kunai* Um, Sorry? Didn't mean to leave you hanging for so long, but I'm back for a bit, at least, This story is almost done, and well, I might have a few oneshots . . . I'm waiting for the manga to finish before I start the third story in this series, though I may split that into two stories, one for up until Pein (or is it Pain?) attacking Kohona, and the other the war.**

**But that's the future. As a reminder, there are some spoilers for the manga, in particular a lot of the backstory information and things happening in the war, although I must admit, I'm not up to date with the current chapters. **

**Now, I promised training and missions this chapter, but first, a brief Recap- Team 7 is closer than ever, and have started wearing different clothes. Sandaime is still alive, but Ebisu died, the Kazekage is also still alive (it's a 'for want of a nail' thing, will be explained later), 'Rose' is the name of Sakura's Inner Personality that is now a split personality and Sakura herself is dealing with a slightly strained relationship with her mother, and Sasuke is discovering some rather unsettling information about the Uchiha clan, as well as discovered information about Naruto's mother Kushina and the Uzumaki clan, which he told to Naruto. Naruto knows the Kyuubi's name, but they're not really friends yet. 3 gennin have been chosen to be promoted to Chunin.**

**And this whole thing started because Kakashi was turned into a dog/wolf, but that's another story.**

**Reminder, this is an ALTERNATE UNIVERSE with some DIVERGENCE FROM CANON. I do not own the rights to Naruto, I'm just having some fun.**

**Tomorrow's Plans**

Naruto was staring at the Hokage in blatant shock. Next to him, Rock Lee was also speechless, while Shikamaru was looking uncomfortable.

They had been called in with their teams to the Hokage's office- not the one used for day to day management, but one that was used rarely, for important meetings and had enough room for about 20 people.

The Hokage was sitting in front of a overly ornate desk that rumored had it was built by the Shodaime, with Iruka standing on one side and Jiraiya, who was stealing glances at Anko's fishnets, on the other. Hayate and Ibiki were standing next to her, and Shikaku, Chouza, and Inochi were leaning against the wall across from them.

"Hokage-jiji . . ." Naruto finally managed, making Sakura want to facepalm.

"You heard me correctly, Naruto. The three of you are promoted to Chunin. Uzumaki Naruto, you are promoted for inspiring others to stick through a difficult task, and protecting those incapacitated from danger." As the Hokage spoke, Kakashi gave Naruto the green chunin vest, his one visible eye practically glowing with pride. "Rock Lee, you are promoted for your strength and hard work to overcome what some would claim a debilitating handicap for a ninja." Gai held out the vest to Lee, who was still speechless, and while Gai appeared more stoic than normal, it was pretty clear to everyone in the room that Gai couldn't be more proud of his student. "Nara Shikamaru, you are promoted for your strategy and your discretion in dangerous situations." Asuma smiled at his most reluctant student, who took the vest in silence. "Congratulations, you've done your village, Hokage, and your teams proud." The trio slipped on their vests, and looked at each other before looking at their teams.

'**Hell yeah!**' Rose cheered, Sakura ignored her to give Naruto a hug. On cue, the office broke into conversations, Ino vowing to pass the next exams, and a quiet conversation between Gai and Lee, before Gai knelt and all but crushed his student with a bear hug.

Sasuke had watched the entire ceremony with a strange feeling in his chest. He was a little jealous that Naruto had managed to make it to chunin before he had, he could admit that, and he was also proud of his teammate's accomplishment, not the least because he was being promoted while Hyuuga Neji wasn't. But there was still an odd emotion that he couldn't place at seeing Naruto in the Chunin vest.

"Congratulations, Dobe." Sasuke offered Naruto a small smile, and got a slightly shaky one in return. Apparently, the promotion still hadn't sunk in yet.

"Thanks, Teme." Sakura rolled her eyes, and Naruto let out a soft yelp as Kakashi roughly ruffled his hair.

"Alright, let's get some lunch to celebrate, then we've got 4 D missions."

"Sensei! Don't ruin the mood yet!" Sakura complained.

"Ah, Sorry Sakura." Kakashi apologized, and Team 7 left, shortly followed by Team 10 and Team Gai.

"Well, I've got some Sound Ninjas to question, Anko?" Ibiki glanced at her, and tried not to feel disturbed at her sudden switch from professional to psycho.

"Who do I get?"

Hayate coughed as they left the room, before looking at Iruka. "If you want to go catch up to Team 7, I can help the Hokage, I have time."

"Go on Iruka." The Hokage interrupted what would have been a feeble protest, and Iruka smiled, passing Hayate the clipboard before leaving as well. "Hayate, if you could head back to my normal office, I need to have a word in private with Jiraiya."

"I'll get the stacks organized, then." Hayate nodded, and left, closing the door.

For a moment, the two remaining were silent, Jiraiya quietly doing a small chakra sweep for possible bugs (and not of the Aburame kind), before turning to his former sensei.

"You want me to bring her back?"

"Orochimaru is injured, most likely beyond the skill of his own healers." Sarutobi sighed, and leaned back in his chair. "I'm not as young as I once was, these injuries . . . there are some on the council who would use them as an excuse to remove me from office."

"Which would be counter-productive given the wreck they'd want to put on the chair." Jiraiya snorted, Danzo was missing an eye and arm.

"And when has that mattered in politics?" Sarutobi gave him a look, and Jiraiya once again felt like a wet-behind the ears gennin who'd made a mistake. "If you're still adamant about not taking the position,"

"I am." Jiraiya loved his village, but he preferred his intelligence gathering to sitting at a desk.

"Then I want Tsunade as my successor, given that my other in village choice is also adamant against it and my third is far too young." Sarutobi sighed. "But if she sides with Orochimaru . . ."

"I know." Jiraiya snapped, knowing where Sarutobi was going with this. It was a sore spot for all of them, but Jiraiya had taken it personally.

"You're probably the only one she'll listen too." Sarutobi said softly.

" . . . Maybe not. It's been a while." Jiraiya crossed his arms. "I want to take Naruto with me."

"Why?"

Jiraiya sighed, knowing what Sarutobi wanted to hear. He would have preferred to keep his reasons to himself, but then again, the old man probably already knew and just wanted him to say it out loud. "Kakashi may have taught him the Rasengan, but there are plenty of things I can teach him, summoning for one, seals for another. Also, from what I've seen, the brat's probably more likely than me to get Tsunade to listen." Jiraiya shook his head at the memory of the two jinchurriki fist-bumping, an obvious change from the Ichibi container's desire to kill. "And because I want to spend time with my god-son. Minato's probably throwing a fit that I haven't been around." Jiraiya paused and then shuddered. "I don't want to imagine Kushina's thoughts." Sarutobi chuckled at the thought, Kushina had been quite hot-blooded when it came to her opinions on family.

"I'll write the mission orders, but you'll have to deal with Hatake yourself."

* * *

Lunch for team seven had been fun, they had gone to Naruto's favorite Ramen stand, and had been treated by the Old man and Ayame, who had been ecstatic that Naruto had been promoted. Iruka had joined them, and they'd ended up spending a couple of hours there.

When they left, Team 7 headed to the Uchiha compound while Iruka headed back to the Hokage Tower.

It was after they had entered one of the restored training rooms (that was more like a small recreation room, as Sasuke and Naruto had placed some games and old cushions in) that Kakashi decided to address the complications of Naruto becoming Chunin.

"Now that Naruto's a Chunin, there's going to be a few things different than normal." Kakashi started, and almost kicked himself when he saw the way the three tensed. "We'll still do training and missions together as a team, but there will be times when Naruto is asked to go on a mission with other teams. Especially in the first few months of being a chunnin- they'll want to see how well he works with others outside of his gennin cell. For the most part, he'll still work more with us, but it's still a possibility that he'll have to do a mission with another team, and for longer durations of time." Kakashi explained, but the looks of dismay still hadn't completely disappeared. "What are you thinking of, Sasuke?"

"I . . . I don't want him going on missions without us." The idea didn't sit well with him, and part of it was the strange feeling of a gap opening up between them. Like he was going to lose a friend just after they became friends. Later, Sasuke would reflect that he had opened up to Naruto and Sakura more than he had realized, and he really couldn't stand the thought of losing them or even Kakashi. But right then, all he really could think was that he didn't like the idea of Naruto leaving them.

"Sakura?" Kakashi turned his attention to her, and she bit her lip.

"I'm really glad Naruto's been promoted, but, Rose and I feel like we need to race to catch up before he leaves us behind." Sakura admitted honestly, she'd been discussing this with Rose during lunch.

"Naruto?"

"I'm not leaving you behind!" Naruto looked affronted by the very idea. "I don't want to go on missions without you guys either, but we're ninjas, remember? We have to do our best! And the only reason you didn't get promoted is because the snake-guy interfered! Sakura's still smarter than me, and Sasuke, you're still my rival, so, so there!" Naruto stuck out his tongue and crossed his arms very childishly before pouting. It was ruined by Kakashi ruffling his hair.

"Quite right, and I'm sure I can train them extra while you're away." Left unsaid were Kakashi's own feelings about Naruto leaving the safety of the pack- and Kakashi vowed to find a wall out of view of his students to hit his head on, because a team was not a pack. "Now, about those missions . . ."

"Yes, Sensei?" Sakura tried not to sound dismayed by the idea of D rank missions.

"They're for tomorrow." Kakashi eye-smiled at their mixed reactions of relief and annoyance, as well as Naruto's face fault onto a cushion. "I'm sorry, did you want them for today?" He dodged a throw pillow from Sakura. "Now, we have to plan out training. Sasuke, I believe you're sufficiently recovered to start learning the technique I have planned for you. Sakura, I'll be starting you on basic medical jutsu, your coils are still recovering, so it'll still be a while before you can do more than that. You still have the books I gave you on the theory?"

"Yes, Sensei." Sakura nodded, and pulled out a storage scroll that contained the books.

"Good. Naruto, we'll be working on basic seals for storage scrolls and explosive tags first. I don't know if you read the book yet,"

"I did, it was boring."

" . . . It was just the basic introduction. I'm not a seal master, but I do know something about seals. We'll also work on seal detection and how to disable a seal." Naruto nodded, before looking at Sakura, who just rolled her eyes.

"Yes, I'll help you with the reading assignments."

"I think one of my cousins had a collection of notes on various seals." The library was still nowhere as organized as Sasuke would like, and there were books collected from the other houses still in boxes, but he had trouble focusing in there for long, or anywhere in the compound, for that matter. Cleaning the compound was still a slow process, as he felt a little like he was snooping through people's lives. Naruto didn't have the same problem, but would stop when Sasuke did, recognizing that he needed a break.

"You'll have to look through that later. Sakura, go over the book with Naruto, Sasuke, I'm going to start you on the basics of this technique- Sharigan can't copy it, so your brother won't be able to use it against you."

* * *

Hours later, Sakura headed home, having learned to heal small scratches. She wasn't really looking forward to talking with her mother, because of how strained things had gotten lately, and she really didn't want to tell her about Rose (who wasn't too happy about that, and really wanted to give her(their?) mother a piece of her(their?) mind. Thinking of split personalities was a little difficult.) because that would be adding fuel to the fire.

"Ah, you're home." Mrs. Haruno looked up from the stove. "Dinner will be ready soon, will you set the table?" It was a horrible attempt at normalcy, but Sakura went with it.

"I'm home." Sakura smiled, and quietly set the table. "How was your day?"

"Fine, the store is still being repaired. And yours?" Mrs. Haruno sat down across from her and picked up her chopsticks.

"Pretty good, I've been helping out at the hospital, and Sensei thinks I've got the potential to be a med nin, so I'm starting to train for that." Sakura smiled. "Naruto's been promoted to Chunin, so we had lunch together to celebrate. Sasuke-kun and I are going to be training really hard to pass the next test." Mrs. Haruno had winced at the mention of Naruto, and frowned at the mention of training harder.

"I don't know if I want you to take that test again, you were injured."

"Okaa-san, it'd would be different next time." Sakura straightened. "I talked with Sensei. Once a year a village hosts the public chunnin exams. They're used to show off how strong a village's shinobi are. But there are normal, private in village exams twice a year, and they're less dangerous." But they were still dangerous. Mrs. Haruno didn't pick up on that.

"I see. And what does a med nin do?"

"Heal. Stay out of fights so they can rescue their teammates." Of course, there were also the healing jutsus that could be weaponized, but Sakura left that part out.

'**Lying by omission is still lying.**' Rose pointed out, amused.

'_Oh, shut up._'

" . . . Alright then. I guess I can't talk you out of it completely." Mrs. Haruno sighed.

'**Excuse me!**' Rose practically yelled, and Sakura could feel a headache coming on. '**She's acting like we didn't even give her a compromise! And she still has issues with Naruto?**'

'_I'll take what I can get._' The remainder of dinner was filled with small talk and some gossip about the neighbors.

* * *

**And that's it for now, sorry, I'm scrambling to get my notes back in order and finish unfinished stories. Going to be a while before my next update, though not as long as this one took.**

**Ideally, the next chapter will have: Naruto going with Jiraiya, Sasuke getting an unwelcome blast from the past, and so does Tsunade. However, it's going to be a little different than canon . . .**


End file.
